Tremble for Me
by Katra21
Summary: My ZaGr free-time monster. With Dib gone to university, Zim finds unexpected companionship with Dib's scary sister. What started as a quest to prove Irken superiority may indeed become a genuine emotional connection for a pair that are literally from different worlds.
1. Unexpected Change of Mission Parameters

Hi-Skool; it was a place loathed by most filthy humans that went through the three years of educational torture. Zim was not human, but he too loathed the establishment that had, in some respects, kept him imprisoned in the same manner. Sure he easily could have skipped all the classes, or taken in the robo-parents and said he was transferring, he could even move and pretend that he was older than his current earth alias.

His height was no longer the primary factor for age determination like when he first arrived. After a few years on Earth Zim found himself growing, and he naturally assumed that it was a reward from the Tallest for doing such a good job. Operation Impending Doom 2 had been declared a success even though his mission remained incomplete. The Tallest were not interested in the time frame so much as having an agent on Earth should the local populace become a nuisance to the Irken empire.

Zim could have moved and changed his identity at any time, but his Earth life had gotten comfortably familiar, and even Hi-Skool was not enough of a deterrent. Today however Zim need not worry about overbearing teachers and ridiculous exams. He had already graduated, and was merely here on business with one of the students. It was child's play to tap into the intercom system and deliver his summons, "Gaz… whatever your last name is… please report to the front of the school."

The purple-haired teen groaned at the sound of the alien's voice. She had hoped that she'd never have to hear that voice again when her brother headed for college. It had been stupid to simply assume that Zim would do the same. Thankfully Zim had stayed quiet once Dib was out of the way, what he was doing here, now, bothering her, Gaz didn't really care. He wasn't worth the bother, but the expectant eyes of her classmates forced her to leave her seat and address the issue. Gaz made her way through the school, opening doors with kicks to relieve her pent-up anger, until she got through the main doors and laid eyes on the green-skinned menace.

"What do you want, Zim?" she said menacingly.

"I have important matters to discuss with you, girl-child."

"I'm not a child," Gaz glared, and repeated her earlier question, "what do you want Zim?"

"It cannot be discussed here," Zim sneered at the Hi-Skool students that loitered everywhere despite classes being in session. "I expected you to feel the relief of an excuse to be skipping class."

Gaz considered this for a moment, before heading down the steps. "If you're planning on wasting my time I will make you wish you were never incubated," she hissed dangerously, making her threat personal despite the audience.

"Excellent, come, Gaz-human," the alien marched away proudly, and with one final groan, Gaz shuffled after him, lazily dragging her feet.

"Where are we going?" Gaz asked as they walked, it had to be nearby, or Zim would have been using his ship. The customized crossbreed of earth cars and Irken space vehicles was one of the alien's better creations.

"Gaz, do you recollect how long we've been on speaking terms?"

Gaz wasn't really on "speaking terms" with anyone, but she knew what the alien boy was talking about. After Zim had been on Earth for a couple years the underground classes at Skool were integrated into the lunch hour, seating had been limited, and what had been four tables of less desirable contacts had become one. Dib and Zim had been forced by social pressures to occupy the same table, along with a half-dozen others. Gaz had made the mistake of continuing to sit with them. "Seven years, now answer the question Zim."

"The base," Zim replied brusquely, "during these seven years, have I ever overstepped the boundaries of appropriate interaction."

"Let's see. You yelled profanities at my lunch. You frequently threatened me or Dib. You've stolen a notebook, fifteen erasers, two pencils and three tubes of lipstick from me. You kidnapped my class for one of your experiments. You've probably had spy cameras following me the entire time. But most importantly, you wrote over my save data for Monster Cruncher, so yeah, not appropriate."

"Well, now that the Dib has left in search of higher education, Zim has realized that social interactions with _you _also have their time limits."

"What's your point Zim?" Gaz asked, as they reached the block where Zim's so-called "house" had been situated since his arrival on Earth. Now Zim remained silent, except for a voice command to deactivate the lawn gnomes as she stepped through the gate. He even held open the door as Gaz stepped inside. Once she was in the middle of the room, she whirled back to him with a glare, wondering what he was playing at.

"My point," Zim didn't look at her, he looked at the door, momentarily composing himself. "During that time I saw you tremble once, from a temperature uncomfortable for human bodies."

"You were the one out in the snow, trying to blow up the science lab," Gaz turned her face away, glaring at the couch instead. There were some things she didn't want to reminded of, like the warmth of Zim's jacket around her shoulders. He had found her shivering to be a distraction to his maniacal exposition.

"At that time, Zim realized a desire that has been left unaddressed." Gaz felt a hint of warmth travelling to her cheeks. Silently cursing herself, the combination of memory and phrasing was not doing wonders for her composure. "I want to see you tremble," Zim turned towards her, with intensity in his eyes that caught Gaz off-guard.

Pulling out his contacts in one sweeping motion he took a determined step towards the girl, "Part of me still sees you as my enemy." His proximity was clearly uncomfortable as Gaz backed away from him. He discarded his wig taking another step closer. "At my core I must subjugate my enemies; I cannot fight the need to have you tremble at my feet." Gaz seemed intimidated; Zim had backed her into the wall, now he thrust his arms against the wall on either side to prevent her from escaping. He had been planning this for a month, and Gaz would probably subject him to extreme pain afterwards, he had to move fast, make her tremble before her usual violent streak at him behaving like an idiot. "Part of me wants to kill you," he said darkly, and it happened.

Gaz trembled, just slightly.

"Victory for Zim," the alien shouted, proud of his accomplishment and thrusting his arms into the air.

"I wasn't trembling in fear, you idiot," Gaz yelled back, her face getting redder.

"What?" his antennae drooped. "You're lying!"

"Oh how I wish that I was…"

"The temperature is appropriate for human bodies, what else could make you tremble, Earth parasites in your belly?"

Gaz bit her lip, and Zim's eyes widened.

Suddenly the Irken bent down and pulled Gaz's shirt away from her stomach, making her tremble again. "You're not allowed to have some filthy Earth parasites in your stomach!" he yelled, until Gaz's hand pushed him away by his forehead.

"I don't have parasites!" Gaz snapped back, "I'm not cold, and I'm not afraid. I was... turned on…" Gaz was now quite red, Zim assumed fury, Gaz knew embarrassment.

"Turned on?" Zim questioned letting his arms flop to his sides, "Humans have an on switch?"

"No, it's just a figure of speech."

"You_ trembled_ because of a _figure of speech_?"

"No!" Gaz looked at the big red eyes that looked at her incredulously. "'Turned on' is a metaphor for sexual arousal."

Zim blinked, trying to comprehend the situation, trying to apply his independent research and three years of 'sex-ed' to the past minute.

"I should go," Gaz began sneaking away, when Zim grabbed her arm.

"You've had many Earth boyfriends."

"Only two," Gaz replied, trying not to be insulted by Zim's exaggeration.

"Were either of them capable of making you tremble?"

"No," Gaz looked at the alien, trying to figure out the alien's strange thought pattern.

"So… Zim is superior in this area?" Zim looked up at Gaz hopefully.

"Sure," Gaz said flatly, letting the green boy have his ego-boost.

"Victory for Zim," he shouted, waving his arms in the air, as Gaz shook her head and moved for the front door. Suddenly the alien was in front of her, blocking the door, "I want to make you tremble again."

"What?" Gaz was glaring now.

"I want," Zim stepped forward, "to make you," he was dangerously close again, but this time Gaz wasn't backing down, "tremble for me." Zim grabbed the belt loops on Gaz's pants and pulled her the extra inch towards him, crashing her folded arms against his chest. "I want to do what your pitiful human boyfriends could not," he said darkly.

"You," Gaz swallowed the words, "You have no idea what you're asking Zim."

"Zim is asking you to turn you back on your species, deny your biological inclination to produce offspring, and give an alien who may one day decide to take over your entire species right to pleasure your body with or without the titles you humans give to that position."

Gaz blushed harder, if that were possible, staring wide-eyed at the alien. On second thought, perhaps she had been the one who didn't realize what _he_ was asking. For a moment the tight-armed fold of her arms loosened, and Zim's face melted into a self-pleased grin. Glare hardening, Gaz pushed the alien boy away, "Back off Zim! You just think you can get whatever you want without any work." Gaz promptly headed for the door while Zim blinked helplessly.

It was mere seconds of information, but Zim processed it frantically. Gaz hadn't actually said no, her words were a test of dedication to the endeavor. Zim ran through what he knew of human standards and protocols. Usually before entering into a reproductive relationship humans interacted more regularly in social settings to determine the quality of the potential mate.

Zim was familiar with being tested. "Saturday," Zim called as Gaz had just stepped past his fence, "can I see you Saturday?"

"Why would I want to see you?" Gaz asked menacingly, but she had stopped moving.

"A movie, Zim shall pay."

"What movie?"

"Uh… Zombie Apocalypse Sixteen," Zim answered hurriedly.

Gaz paused, "I like the night showings," she answered, soft and quiet, then harshly, "don't screw it up."

Zim's eyes widened in realization as Gaz proceeded with her walk out of his neighbourhood. He had a date… with Dib's scary sister…

* * *

A/N: I've always liked ZaGr, it's my favourite pairing, but it's hard to find good reading material for it. I've had this one-shot sitting on my computer for... I don't even know how long, and have gone back to read it whenever I need a quick dose of the couple. Unfortunately that has led to more writing, and I've decided that it's high time this bit of nonsense was put to the internet. Be free, my monsterous creation, be free.

PS. Yes there's more story if you prove you want it.


	2. Definitions of Appropriate Interaction

Gaz stared at her mirror in frustration, they'd never really decided on a set time. Because of that Gaz had gotten ready just after dinner. Except that she wasn't ready, not ready at all. She'd gone through five different outfits. Zim was not worth that kind of effort. It was just an old crush that managed to pull on some nostalgic sentimentality…

Gaz barely admitted to herself that she had a crush on the alien the first night they'd met. That parent-teacher conference had started off badly. Not only had Gaz been embarrassed by her father, but also her teacher, and her brother. Yet somehow, even though she was in a bad mood, Zim had managed to elicit two chuckles. She'd never been so instantly… _attracted_ to someone before or after. It wasn't that Gaz couldn't appreciate a good looking guy, but Zim didn't ever fit into normal standards of attractiveness. It had worn off, thankfully only a couple weeks later after Gaz had beaten Zim in some online game, which may have actually been one of the alien's first attempts to destroy her brother. But there were still moments when Zim did something that made her heart skip a beat.

A lustful shudder was considerably more than the usual brief and fleeting hint at attraction.

Gaz looked at herself in the mirror once more. She rarely ever wore skirts, and this was a particularly short one. Gaz was conflicted. No one, especially not Zim, should see her legs. However there was no way she was going to avoid wearing what she wanted to around Zim. It wasn't like Zim was actually attracted to a pale little human girl. Gaz knew enough of Irken anatomy to know that the reproductive system was long gone. Zim was the one male that would be completely unaffected by her choice of clothes. It made no sense that she'd be making a big deal out of it. Zim might not even show up.

The doorbell rang, and Gaz knew she was out of time to fight herself on the clothing choice. Gaz opened the door, discovering that her choice of clothes was completely negligible. "What are you wearing?" Gaz asked.

Zim looked at his clothes, Gaz was protesting to a tuxedo… According to Zim's research it was the most common form of date-wear in movies romance movies depicting humans of a Hi-Skool age.

Gaz let out a growl of frustration. They were only going to a movie, and Zim looked like he was ready for the freaking prom. It was like life had crept up out of the woodwork with a reality check. Zim was hopeless. Gaz slid close to him to rectify the situation. The first thing she did was ditch the bow tie, tossing the infuriating strip of cloth into the bushes. Then she peeled back Zim's jacket, tossing it over her arm while she unbuttoned the vest.

"Zim did not realize that date-clothes worked so effectively," Zim gave the Irken equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

Gaz clamped one hand over his mouth to stop him from speaking as she fiddled with jacket and button combinations. Her fingers smelled like Earth fruit… Zim took an experimental lick. Chemicals, but Gaz trembled slightly and drew back.

Zim cracked a toothy smile, "No Zim," Gaz said angrily, "that tremble was disgust. Don't lick me." Zim opened his mouth but Gaz cut him off, "Plenty of humans are just as disgusting as you, if not more so."

Zim sunk, and Gaz looked at her adjustment to his clothes. Now he looked like he was in business and just got off work. It was still not entirely appropriate to be seen next to a teenage girl showing a little too much skin, but it was better than before. "You still look like a dork, but I'm not missing the movie because of it," Gaz said as she finished off by taking off Zim's gloves.

Zim went momentarily rigid at the action, but Gaz ignored the alien-boy's eccentricities.

"Get in your car," Gaz commanded, finally pushing him down the walkway after a minute of him staring at his bare three fingered hands.

Zim silently obeyed. His fingers itched without gloves. Irkens did not normally expose their digits beyond personal grooming. Gaz climbed into the vehicle next to him, and without another word Zim drove to the local movie theatre where Zombie Apocalypse Thirteen was playing. Zim paid for the tickets, and for ample portions of popcorn and slushy that Gaz then made him carry to their seats. Eventually she gave the command, "Sit down, Zim," but otherwise their date began without any more conversation.

Zim felt disgusting, his fingers had gotten a mild coating from carrying the earth food. Without any cleansing chuck to relieve the irritation his hands simply wouldn't stop fidgeting. His wiggling gradually expanded onto the arm of chair, and onto a _something_. It was soft, and covered in tiny little hairs, and flinched as he first touched it, then after a moment it relaxed to his searching fingers. Zim realized that it was Gaz's hand. Soft flesh, delicate skin, smooth fingernails, Zim didn't realize that the human hand was such an interesting little feature to touch. Then again he'd never touch one with his bare hand willingly. Zim glanced at the screen lit figure next to him, Gaz did not seem to be bothered by it. The flickering reflected light did little to expose the extra hint of color on her cheeks. Then Zim considered her attire for a moment, it was obviously an important feature of the dating experience, and Gaz did not typically wear skirts…

What did the earth girls' legs feel like?

The moment Zim switched his focus Gaz flinched, the sound of her hand colliding with his cheek momentarily overpowered the movie. Clearly her legs were out of bounds, and since her hand had disappeared from the partition between chairs, he was not allowed that anymore either. Zim felt an odd pang of disappointment, and went back to fidgeting.

Then, after a minute, Gaz slowly crossed the barrier between them, resting her hand in his open palms. Zim gently stroked the gift, exploring every crease and wrinkle of the human feature.

Suddenly the movie ended. Zim was certain that it was much too short. Gaz and her hand pulled away, heading out of the theatre, with Zim trailing uselessly behind. Zim watched her fingers longingly as they walked in awkward silence. Could he ask? _Little-Gaz, might Zim continue with the touching of your hand?_ It seemed like a very bad idea if he wanted to keep his bruising to a minimum.

"I'm going to have to see that movie again without you," Gaz's voice cut into Zim's thoughts.

Zim blinked, "Why is that?"

"I don't think anyone could concentrate if they were sitting next to you, Mr. Curious Fingers. You probably know the back of my hand better than I do."

"And that's bad…" Zim tried to confirm.

"Not exactly," Gaz said, then paused for a moment. "Look, we're both here for the same reason, Zim. You're here to prove your superiority. I'm here to prove mine. I'm _above_ being attracted to you, Zim, which means your little _quirks_, annoy me. And you already know what I do to people when they annoy me."

"Zim thought it was desirable to excite the reproductive system."

Gaz turned back at him, "Not in my opinion."

"But, if you did not want me to excite your reproductive system then why did you agree to go out with me?"

"Stop saying reproductive system."

"That wasn't an answer, and why shouldn't Zim say," Gaz glared, "those… two words… that you told Zim not to say…"

"For me this is an exercise in desensitising, I get used to you so you can't make me look stupid. As for those two words, there's such a thing as context Zim. I know what you're talking about, you don't have to remind me. All these people _do not need to know_, it's exactly the same reason that you insisted on dragging me to your house the other day. You don't want people knowing about your _skin condition_. I don't want people knowing about how much I want to kick your ass right now."

Zim's eyes widened, "Zim will… be more discreet."

"Good plan," Gaz let out a dark smile, then watched the alien boy staring at her hand. With a sigh, Gaz uncrossed her arms and stretched her hand away from her body. Zim was almost giddy when he grabbed the hand, until he got a punch to the shoulder, but Gaz's hand remained in his, and he gently explored it as they walked to the car-ship.

The drive was once more silent, but it was a more pleasant silence then the awkward drive to the theatre. Zim pulled to a stop in front of the electric fence of the Membrane house, "This is the typical moment for the goodnight… kiss… correct?"

"No," Gaz said, stepping out of the vehicle. Gaz paused momentarily, then whirled back towards Zim decidedly, "Next Friday we'll go roller blading. I'll come to your house after school."

"Oh, okay," Zim brightened, "goodnight love-pig."

"I'm not a pig," Gaz snapped back before walking away. She opened the door and slammed it shut behind her just as quickly, anything to get walls between herself and the lingering Irken. Why did he have to linger at the end of her driveway anyway? Gaz peeked out a nearest window and watched the car disappear, proof that Zim wasn't playing with any stupid ideas.

"I'm home," Gaz called into her father's basement lab as she headed for the stairs.

"How was your date?" he called back.

"It was… nice," Gaz struggled with the word. She didn't want it to be nice. She wanted it to be horrible so that her stupid little crush would go away permanently.

If Dib ever found out he'd throw a fit. Gaz cracked a smile at that thought. If he ever did find out, or if anyone asked why she was dating Zim, she'd say it was to piss Dib off.

* * *

A/N: _You have proved yourselves worthy_. Lol, yeah, not really good at holding things over people's heads, still, five reviews was enough to get the second chapter posted in short order, so it kinda worked. Now you start getting a little into how I analysed the original series for pairing potential. I went with the airdate order, rather than the DVD order. Parent Teacher Night then NanoZim, and I hope that anyone who watches the episodes in that order will see that Zim gets more of Gaz's attention than the average pathetic human worm. Even in the rest of the series, Gaz responds more to Dib's ramblings about Zim than other ramblings. Call it rose-colored glasses if you must, but that's how I liked to think of them when I wrote this. Reviews please!


	3. This Ain't no Disco

Gaz took a deep breath, steeling herself against the stupidity she was undoubtedly walking into. Zim was not really the most perceptive of creatures. However, Zim's stupidity was one thing she actually wanted exposure to. Obviously she hadn't gotten enough bad experiences of it if she was here at all. Gaz ignored the slow turning of the gnomes as she walked past, and hit the doorbell.

She had to wince in pain and horror as pink sequins hit the daylight.

"Zim is most appropriately dressed for the roller disco, no?" Zim asked.

"No," Gaz shoved him roughly back into the base before someone could see him in the ridiculous getup. "It's just roller blading, Zim, no disco, no ridiculous outfit chosen from watching too many stupid movies. Just wear what you normally wear."

"Irken military-ware is not a wise choice for human social functions, too many variables; accidental weapons fire could damage my love pig."

Gaz felt her cheeks warm, love-pig was a horrible moniker, Zim obviously hadn't learned his lesson. She should slug him, but there was a sentiment of concern in that drabble that stayed Gaz's usual violence. It was horrible enough that Gaz could translate Zim's pidgin English, let alone that it could elicit any sort of emotional response from her. "What you would normally wear when you attended school," Gaz clarified her expectations.

"Computer, prepare school disguise mark five," Zim called to the walls.

"PROCESSING…" the robotic computer voice echoed before a pair of black Jeans and a red long sleeve shot out from the wall. Zim went about changing without a second thought to the human female standing across the room. Gaz flinched until she noticed the skin tight layer that still remained. The oddly silky looking cloth covered from his shoulders to his knees in something of a sleeveless unitard. If Gaz asked about it she'd probably get some long spiel about the superiority of Irken clothing. She remained quiet; her face turned away from Zim, but her amber eyes watched smooth green muscles maneuvering the new clothes. It was obvious that the arrangement of muscles was not quite human, and that only served to make them more fascinating.

"Am I now appropriate for our date?"

"Yeah, sure," Gaz turned towards the door, with Zim following in tow.

It was subtle. Zim very gently brushed the backside of his fingers against Gaz's hand. Gaz didn't want to know how the alien pulled off subtle after nearly nine years of hopelessly blunt and completely clueless. With a soft sigh, Gax flexed her fingers towards Zim and squeezed his hand before she climbed into the vehicle, and gave him the directions to the roller rink.

He took her hand as soon as she had stepped out of the vehicle, and they walked hand in hand into the recreation centre. Zim paid, of course, and once they sat down to change into the roller blades, Gaz managed a dark smile of satisfaction. Zim had never been skating before, eyeing the strange contraption with confusion. "They're just shoes with wheels," Gaz said, lacing up her own pair.

"They're a health hazard," Zim said, but began to put them on anyway, "communal footwear, I would rather not get infected with some disgusting human foot fungus."

"Don't be such a whiner," Gaz said firmly, standing up, and extending not one but both hands towards Zim to help him to his feet.

Zim promptly landed on his face.

His second attempt was rather more successful, Gaz managed to draw him out onto the waxed rink. "Stay on the inside, you can grab the rail if you lose your balance," Gaz told him, it meant Gaz was on the outside, and that Zim was busy familiarizing himself with his previously unacquainted hand.

It was a slow circle, and Gaz felt the eyes of every other skater mocking them. After the first circle around, Gaz was getting sick of it. "I'm going to go ahead, you'll be on your own for a while."

"Oh, alright," Zim reluctantly released Gaz's hand putting both of his hands on the rail pathetically.

It was almost relieving, seeing Zim that pathetic, Gaz didn't feel a speck of remorse as she tore away from him. In just a moment she was zipping around the rink at her usual pace, break neck. She only caught momentary glimpses of her "date" in passing. Clinging to the rail; stretching his arms for balance like a tight rope walker; inching away from the rail and… Gaz couldn't spot him. Gaz scanned the whole outer ring for him, but no sign, she checked the seating areas outside of the rink, but no sign.

Finger's gently brushed the backside of her hand, and after a moment of recoiling, Gaz noticed Zim skating next to her… and keeping pace. "You're… how did you get so good?" Gaz asked hotly.

"It took a few minutes for the Pak to calculate the muscle movements of this… roller blading."

Gaz frowned. If Zim could apply his alien tech to _this_, he could probably apply to just about anything. They skated around the circle for nearly an hour. Gaz pushed at Zim's learning limits by making him skate backwards and teaching him other little tricks. It made increasingly transparent that testing Zim physically would not amount to anything but envy. The alien didn't even break into a sweat.

Zim marvelled at the physical prowess of the human female. Roller blading appeared to be a much harder task than the available media suggested. It was by observing the motion of her body that his Pak had been able to create an acceptable skating algorithm. But after Gaz's testing, his Pak felt well and truly pushed to its processing limits. If it weren't for the music that played Zim suspected that Gaz would be able to hear his cooling systems sputtering from overuse. Then there were his muscles, damn things burned from the new regime, it was almost as bad as military training camp. His Pak had resorted to painkillers, and he'd have to sit in a tank of muscle regenerative goo for his legs to be usable tomorrow. How any human could endure that kind of exercise for entertainment was beyond his comprehension, yet Gaz's legs moved with the same smooth power that they'd started this outing with, Zim couldn't help but find the sight appealing. Gaz was as powerful and dangerous as the pitiful human species came. The form fitting black jeans she wore only made it easier to observe, and wonder. Since his recent affection for touching the earth girl's fingers, Zim was finding the forbidden zone… tempting.

Gaz knew her next move. Her stomach was growling from the workout. If he couldn't be tripped up physically, she'd get him mentally. "I think we're done here," Gaz slowed, and rolled out of the waved rink onto the carpet. The change in consistency made Zim trip, it elicited a small snort from the human female. Gaz flopped on the bench where they had started, switching back to her regular shoes, before watching Zim struggle with the clasps of his own. "I'm hungry," Gaz said casually, "let's go to Bloaty's Pizza Hog."

Zim visibly flinched. The horrific eating establishment hadn't crossed his mind when he'd begun this endeavor. The only thing more certain than his avoiding the eating establishment at all costs was that Gaz would frequent it. He'd only been to the pizzeria once, when chasing Dib and Gaz in he'd been surprised by animatronic monstrosities that the restaurant employed as mascots. It was beyond him how the human could find amusement in the hideous mechanical beasts that sent a ripple of panic through him even now. This was another test. Gaz was determined to put him through his paces. Foolish girl, did she not realize that the challenge only made the reward seem more tantalizing?

"If that's what you want to do…" Zim replied, though he knew that his voice sounded strained.

"Let's go," Gaz had her one hand stretched out before him. Five tantalizing digits called to him like the siren of the odyssey.

Zim would not appear cowardly before the female. He stood, sliding his fingers around her soft human appendage possessively. "Very well, little Gaz," Zim said with determination, "we shall go to your eating establishment."

For a moment Gaz's cheeks warmed, as Zim took the first step away from the bench. But it was obvious after only a few steps that Gaz had to redirect him to the desk to return their rental blades. They headed out into the parking lot, climbing back into Zim's vehicle and Gaz directed him to Bloaty's.

The alien's resolve dissipated as they arrived at the restaurant. Gaz was tempted to smirk at the trail of sweat that graced the Irken's face. He was crumbling, exactly as she wanted him to. Then in a mere moment, Zim was out of his seat, had circled the car and waited outside Gaz's door with his hand extended to her.

Gaz blinked, the alien's face was turned away from her and… it was the first time that Gaz was the one reaching for him. Normally it was Zim who reached for her. It was Zim who had somehow latched onto holding her hand in the first place. Gently Gaz laced her fingers through his, a slight variation to the normal hand-hold, but Zim's grasp quickly firmed up around her, until she could feel the slightest tremble in his fingers. Zim didn't look at her as she led the way into the pizzeria, got them a table. It was a booth for four, but Gaz put Zim on the inside by the window and they both sat on the one side.

Gaz leaned on the table, her gaze drifting to the alien, no doubt his face was knotted in fear. Otherwise he wouldn't be so determined not to look at her. It almost made Gaz smile, she'd beat him, at last, he was proving himself the stupid idiot she loved to hate. He flinched as the mascot began to sing and move, despite the fact that they were half-way across the restaurant.

"You okay, Zim?" Gaz asked mockingly.

"No," Zim said, then placed an Irken ray-gun on the table, "hold this."

"What?" suddenly Gaz noticed something about his twitching, it was all in his trigger finger. It wasn't just fear that Zim had to fight, but a lifetime of military training and an arsenal at his disposal. Gaz pulled the weapon off the table, suddenly feeling unusually guilty about making him so uncomfortable. Normally she had a sense of satisfaction at making him suffer, but right now, Zim was just making himself miserable to accommodate her. Handing over his weapons, it was something so impossibly un-Irken, un-Zim, it was something oddly vulnerable. Gaz squeezed his hand in reassurance, and the alien's shaking steadied, his face turning back towards her, just enough to catch her face out of the corner of his eye, he squeezed back.

An unfamiliar warmth blossomed in Gaz's chest, just when she'd beaten it, she'd gone and sparked her old crush up again. This time Gaz turned away, angry at herself, and determined to be unaffected with the gentle caress that Zim now applied to her fingers.

"Bloaty's Pizza Hog, Bloaty's Pizza Hog, Bloaty's Pizza Hog," Zim went rigid. Gaz opened one eye to glare at the robotic mascot. Normally the distorted mechanical singing didn't bother her… With a swift punch, the animatronic was sent toppling backwards, twitching uselessly on the floor.

"Let's play some video games," Gaz said pulling Zim along behind her, oddly finding his tightened grasp on her hand appeasing. She headed for her favourite game, and then found herself pausing. It was two player, but the controls required two hands. It was stupid, she should not be reluctant to let go of the green idiot's hand. Gaz roughly forced Zim's hand onto the joystick, compensating for her weakness in her usual manner, violence. Zim shuddered, "That controls your ship," Gaz said, ignoring the shudder, pointing to the colored buttons, "and those are you weapons."

"Zim can feel the layers of dirt and grease," the Irken looked about ready to barf.

"Suck it up, Zim," Gaz said dispassionately. He should have been considering himself lucky that she was playing with him at all. Usually Gaz chased away other players, Dib only played with her as a token to their father, and she'd ditched plenty of people because they couldn't game.

Gaz put in a couple coins, and immediately started mashing buttons. Zim was too reluctant, his ship was sitting dead. "If you don't score at least a thousand points I'm never letting you touch me again," Zim flinched, and despite the horror of the germ-infested controls, started mashing the buttons as Gaz did. It was oddly satisfying that such a threat worked… in the back of her mind Gaz wondered when exactly that threat would've worked. The first couple years on Earth Zim would have scoffed with disgust. It was probably just after that first date, when he'd mysteriously latched onto touching her hand. Yet, when he came to get her from school it was obvious that he placed some value on their contact. Gaz shook it off, focusing instead on the game at hand.

Two little ships danced around the screen while firing lasers at whatever obstacles flew their way. Dib would have been dead at level two, but when Zim managed to stay alive until the fourth boss, Gaz was not about to waste the extra lives. "Do exactly as I say Zim," Gaz said, she commanded him, middle, left corner, or right corner. After that boss Gaz's commands became less demanding, but she guided him through the remaining levels of the game, turrets coming up the right, shoot from a distance those ones self-destruct, such that he only died completely two levels before her.

The game machine spewed tickets, three per level, Gaz would never admit that it was nine more than she'd usually acquire, as the one boss was practically invincible without two ships. Zim's eyes remained glued to the screen until their scores appeared, Gaz had 12,515, Zim had 3,950. The gap between them was big, but Zim let out a breath of relief, before Gaz turned abruptly back towards the table.

Zim whirled, Gaz had crossed her arms, leaving him to wonder if he'd done something wrong. Gaz flumped down in her seat, blocking off the window seat that Zim had been in before. Zim opened his mouth to say something, but Gaz cut him off, "There's a whole other side, Zim." She sounded angry.

"I thought less than a thousand was the point where you were to loathe Zim," Zim scrutinized the human female.

"No, under a thousand was the point where you were never allowed to touch me, under four thousand was no touching for the rest of the … day." She'd made it up on the spot, but Zim sunk in defeat. It was… too sweet, Gaz wanted to kick him for all the stupidly warm and fuzzy feelings that his regard has somehow brought up in her. However if she did kick him, she'd want to make it up to him somehow and that was counterproductive. Zim was getting too close for comfort. It was all the fault of her disgusting human biology. Lucky Zim, he had no sex drive. His innards weren't bathing in a slough of frustrating and unnecessary hormones.

Gaz ate her pizza, Zim paid, and then drove her home. Zim shuffled awkwardly. Gaz knew that he wanted to ask about the goodnight kiss. She was ending this. "You're not getting a goodnight kiss, Zim."

"Right… um… next week…"

"Gothic convention, don't bother coming back here. Goodbye Zim," Gaz stepped out of the car.

"Goodnight, Gaz-human," she barely listened, heading inside, before watching him drive away.

"I'm home," Gaz called into her father's basement lab as she headed for the stairs.

"How was your date?" he called back.

"It was… fun," Gaz struggled with the word. She didn't want it to be fun. Being with Zim was not allowed to be fun. It was becoming increasingly obvious that being around the alien would make things worse before they made them any better. She could easily make excuses until he got the idea, even if he didn't, she could tell him flat out that his little experiment with her was over. Zim wasn't affected by those kinds of things. This was just some time waster to prove his superiority, and there was no way that Gaz was going to put up with a long spiral of stupid flighty feelings for that.


	4. Dredging Up New Emotions

Knee-high shit-kickers, it was why Gaz had any sort of skirt in the first place. The combination of spikes, buckles and corset lacing on the sharp heeled pair of boots just demanded to be shown off. And a skirt was the only way to do it. Gaz layered on the mascara, blood-red lip-gloss, fishnets and lace. The most colorful thing on her was her skull pendant. It was the one weekend a year that she went all-out. Even if she hadn't dumped Zim, she wouldn't want him to join her at the gothic convention.

"Of course he did," Gaz wanted to disappear as the green-skinned alien boy approached her between events.

"We should… have some kind… of tracking system…" Zim panted slightly. "If Zim had known that the Gaz-human was adhering to conventional dress of the social situation I could have improved upon my fashion choices."

Gaz looked at the outfit, obviously something new he'd whipped together, but it was also surprisingly casual. Black skinny-cut jeans, a black long sleeve with a blood red Irken military symbol in the middle, and his gloves were trimmed with spikes. It was a good medium between looking normal and looking situational. Gaz didn't want to admit that, for once, he looked good. "Your clothes are fine Zim, but I didn't invite you," Gaz specified, watching his eyes bug out.

"But when you left…"

"I said I was busy, that means no date," Gaz put a hand to her temple, "go home Zim." The alien looked practically crest fallen. Gaz was torn. Part of her wanted to acquiesce. Maybe even put him in a collar and drag him around with her. The other part wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. Unfortunately Zim was so dense that he could easily get the wrong idea if she wasn't straightforward, hence why he was here is the first place. She'd already tried beating around the bush about it, "This little experiment of yours, it has to-"

"Gaz," another voice interrupted her.

"Dredge," Gaz said the name darkly before turning back towards the boy who had interrupted her. He had on a trench coat, chains dangling from his pants, and black mascara that twisted in a thorny shape down his cheek.

"Fancy meeting you here," Dredge smiled, "and might I say, you look damn fuckable." Zim flinched. This earthanoid was indicating an attraction to his love-pig, in a manner much less discreet than his own, and she had not maimed him. What did that mean? Was the attraction mutual?

"I'm a little busy here, Dredge," Gaz said flatly.

"Busy, with _that_ guy?" Dredge chuckled, "Are you serious? Busy telling him off, I hope."

"Dredge," Gaz said it threateningly. She could see the alien at her back getting more and more rigid in his posture. It _was_ a pretty dumb idea, but it would be easier to straighten Zim out than to get Dredge off her back. Gaz smiled, a wicked, maniacal smile, "Dredge, this is Zim, my boyfriend," Gaz stepped back to the alien and leaned seductively into Zim's chest.

"Oh," Dredge looked taken aback.

Zim allowed himself to relax, Gaz had just indicated in no uncertain terms that she was taken. Although she also seemed to be playing it up. Draping his arm around the human female's shoulders, Zim matched her maniacal smile. He was rather inclined to yell "victory for Zim" and shove it in this Dredge-person's face, except that it would likely get him slugged in the shoulder.

"Fuck, whatever," Dredge turned and walked away.

"Who was he?" Zim asked suspiciously as Gaz stepped away from his chest, her act dropping like a rock.

"Dredge is an idiot, he takes anything I say I finds a way to use it to fuel his own little fantasy of being datable." Gaz glared at the spot where Dredge had disappeared, she'd not seen the end of that pathetic maggot, and she knew it. She would have to keep Zim around all weekend if she wanted Dredge to stay away. With a deep sigh, Gaz wrapped her hand around Zim's, their usual formation.

"So… he is a former paramour?"

"No, he's _not_. He's just seriously dense."

"I see," Zim pondered, "you were about to say something, correct?"

"Doesn't matter," Gaz started walking, dragging Zim along, obviously contradicting her earlier instruction for him to leave. Zim smiled, and easily adjusted to keep pace beside his love-pig, but the change was bothersome. Gaz changed her mind, because of this Dredge-human. It was not the sort of behaviour that put Zim at ease, certainly not with a human as stubborn and independent as Gaz. So while Gaz dragged him between her various events, which covered everything from handling dead bodies to vampire stereotyping, Zim watched. Zim watched the earth-girl, he watched for Dredge. Several times Zim saw the annoying maggot start to approach and then change directions. Often when this happened, Gaz's grip on his hand tightened a fraction.

Something about Dredge's approach put Gaz on edge. It only made Zim regret his clothing choice. His gloves hampered his ability to detect the minute fluctuations in warmth, and pulse that would provide clues to the girl's thoughts. Today Gaz made no effort to remove the gloves, and Zim wanted to curse himself for wearing them to begin with. It was strange how the difference in a layer of cloth was so noticeable, a month prior the thought of removing his gloves to touch a human would have bothered him. Of course he'd never thought about touching Gaz specifically until it became a chance to prove his own superiority…

Gaz looked appropriate in the "goth" attire. Zim could appreciate the appeal of wearing dark and threatening clothes. Military training had taught him that intimidation could win a battle. Although, while Dib was always an annoyance, Gaz was the only human he'd actually found threatening, even without playing it up with clothes. So who was this Dredge that made Gaz feel threatened enough to rely on Zim?

As the day progressed, Dredge's meanderings got closer and closer, particularly when there weren't other people around. Zim could still feel a ghostly tingle across his chest from when Gaz had leaned against him. Stupid Dredge wasn't allowed anywhere near Zim's love-pig if the invader had anything to say about it. As the day was nearing its conclusion and the crowds were thinning, Dredge continued to get bolder, and Gaz continued to get quieter. Zim couldn't do nothing.

Leaning close to Gaz's ear, Zim whispered, "Executing evasive maneuvers." Zim pulled Gaz around a corridor. Knowing that the Dredge-human would be following in a moment, he took Gaz by the waist, and used his Pak's spidery legs to latch them onto a high ceiling. Then, when Dredge came around the corner, he stealthily snuck back the way they had come.

Once he released Gaz, she punched him, "A little more warning, Zim, I didn't know what you meant by evasive maneuvers."

"Would you prefer me to simply peel back his skin, and place a tracking device in his liver so that we can avoid him more efficiently?"

Gaz paused, it did sound cool, actually she was always tempted to watch the alien torturing her brother. Letting out a sigh, Gaz took Zim's hand again. "No, let's just get out of here, before he comes looking for me again."

"Why is this Dredge such a persistent stink-beast? And why have you not turned him into a squishy human paste?"

"If I filleted every dumbass who didn't understand the phrase 'piss off' I'd have a hell of a lot of skeletons in my closet. Dredge is a nuisance, but he hasn't crossed the line to being an actual threat. He's not the first idiot I've had to put up with, and he probably won't be the last," Gaz glared backwards.

"So Gaz is very desirable by human standards?" Zim concluded.

Gaz flushed, but shook it off. "Don't know, don't care," Gaz replied simply. There was no reason for Gaz to care about the opinions of others, the only person she'd ever really tried to please was her father. Gaz glanced at the alien walking next to her. Perhaps her father was one of two, but she knew all too well that both were useless endeavors.

Zim drove her home. Then there was a long moment while Gaz remained seated in the car. "There's more stuff going on tomorrow," she said after a minute.

"You're busy," Zim filled in the blanks, sounded almost insulted.

"I was going to say: Pick me up at nine, I'd like to get an early start," Gaz opened her door.

"You're expecting the Dredge-human to return," Zim stated, more as a fact than a question.

Gaz paused, closing the door, which meant she was still sitting next to him. "Listen, Zim, having you around is good Dredge-repellent, but beyond that I didn't really want you around at the convention, or anywhere for that matter. You're superior to any human boyfriend," Gaz threw in the concession, "but this little experiment at making me tremble, I've gotten bored of it, and you. After tomorrow, I have no intention of seeing you or speaking to you ever again."

Zim blinked. He wasn't sure how to react to that, and simply stared as Gaz stepped out of his car and disappeared into her house. It was a hollow feeling, like his squeedly-spooch had shrunk. Then there was a beep. Zim ignored the state of his organs to check the alert. The tracking bug that he had placed on Dredge was leaving the gothic convention. It was a vain act of possessiveness. Gaz had made it obvious that she was no possession, but her reaction to the filthy earth boy still seethed under Zim's skin. Even though Gaz had told him not to track the human, he had anyway. It wasn't like Zim had anything better to do. Irkens did not need sleep. He

Following the beeping of his tracking system to the home of Dredge, Zim deployed a remote controlled cockroach for surveillance. After a few minutes the camera bug had found its way to Dredge's bedroom, the gothic teen was sitting in a dark room lit only by images flashing across a computer screen.

Zim recognized those images.

There had been many time when Zim had tapped into the human traffic cameras to spy on Dib. But Dib was no longer at the house that could be seen on the screen, only Gaz. Then there was a camera angle that Zim was unfamiliar with, one that could see directly into the earth girl's bedroom. With a roar of bloodlust, Zim threw the controller in the backseat. He exited his car and then used his spider legs to propel himself through the twisted adolescent's window.

Glass shattered. Dredge tumbled back, eyes wide with fear. Zim pulled out a laser. Dredge's computer sparked, and melted from the blast. "**If you go anywhere near her again the same thing will happen **_**to your skull!**_** Understand you filthy human meat-bag?**" Dredge trembled, but after a second nodded his head. Zim sneered with disgust at the sight, but he contained his rage, and clambered back out the window.

With a sigh, Zim leaned back into the seat of his vehicle, wondering what this "relationship" with the Gaz-human was doing to his temper, and his organs…

* * *

A/N: So Gaz has broken up with Zim. Yeah, it's one of those things that I didn't initially plan for, and then the writing got away from me. In an earlier draft Dredge was at the skating rink, and Bloaty's had been paired with the movie. I like this better. If gives me more space to feel out the relationship before they've actually developed into a proper couple. I have one more chapter ready to hit the interwebs if this chapter gets lots of reviews.


	5. Be Afraid of the Gaurd Dog

The doorbell rang at exactly eight fifty five. Gaz checked her outfit in the mirror before leaving. It was essentially the same, except that Gaz had decided to wear he black lip-gloss instead. She assured herself that it had nothing to do with the Irken, even if that was a lie. Part of her had hoped that he wouldn't show up that morning and simply leave her to face Dredge on her own.

For the first time ever, Zim looked stoic. Gaz quietly looked over the alien, standing silent and unmoving on her doorstep.

"You're feeling guilty about something," Gaz said simply, "what did you do?"

Zim's face scrunched up, then he placed what looked like an old fashioned cellular phone in her hand. "This will beep if the filthy Dredge human arrives at the convention," then Zim turned, and headed for the car, with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Zim never put his hands in his pockets. Gaz watched with a raised eyebrow before following after. It would have been easy to figure out where the alien had spent the night with the extra equipment and snack packages that had accumulated in the back seat. Gaz sighed. It didn't seem like Zim had gotten the picture when she'd dumped him last night.

Except that after a while it seemed like he had. As the day progressed, Zim made no move to hold her hand, or even to talk to her. They might just as well have been two complete strangers who happened to have the same interests. If they had been though, even Gaz might've made some attempt to communicate with someone that she appeared to have so much in common with. Except that Zim wasn't a stranger, or even someone with similar interests. He was an awkward ex, who was only there to be on hand if Dredge showed up.

It felt lonely. Gaz wanted to curse herself. This sucked. It sucked to have Zim so close, yet deliberately distant. She should've broken it off with him after the convention had ended. Right now it just seemed like she was using him. Zim wasn't this quiet or distant with anyone, friends or enemies. Zim was always animated, loud, and annoying; which only meant that he was, once again, only behaving this way to accommodate her. Gaz didn't want Zim to be accommodating, even Zim being angry at her was better than this. Gaz wanted to take it back, she wanted to tease him, hold his hand and make everything go back to the way it had been. Of course, that only meant she'd have to break up with him all over again, because no matter what warm and fuzzy feelings crawled through her it would never work out.

Zim was an alien. More importantly he was an alien genetically programmed not to need or want companionship of any kind.

"I'm bored, let's just leave," Gaz said, she couldn't concentrate on any of the events anyway. Zim nodded, and followed her towards the entrance.

The tracker beeped. Zim flinched. It was a Perimeter breach, and since they were headed for the entrance. Zim quickly spotted Dredge, and pulled Gaz into a hidden alcove.

Gaz felt her face getting hotter by the moment. Their hiding spot was too small for two. Zim was practically pressed against her. A soft growl escaped his lips as Dredge walked by, thankfully unnoticed by the passing goth. Gaz cursed her fluttering stomach, desperately willing herself not to tremble.

"Guess it's a good thing that we were just leaving," Zim wrapped his hand around Gaz's hand before he stepped out from their hiding spot and continued to head towards the door. Zim's bare hand… Gaz tried not to react, although thankfully Zim was too distracted to notice how much she failed. Having Zim's hand in hers made her smile, softly, sadly. She liked holding his hand; liked it way too much for her own good.

Then Gaz spotted something that she wished she hadn't; one of Dredge's friends, on a phone, saying her name. "Zim," Gaz tugged his arm and quickly changed directions.

"What is it?" Zim asked it a low hiss.

"Dredge brought _friends_," Gaz said sarcastically.

Zim looked at the path she was taking, "Vendors room?"

"Plenty crowded," Gaz confirmed, though she grimly noted one of Dredge's friends standing just at the entrance to the vending rooms, flipping open his phone.

It wasn't long until Gaz noticed Dredge, circling them like a shark. Zim was once again developing a twitch in his trigger finger. "Dammit," Zim cursed, "I can't do anything in this crowd." Gaz tightened her grip on his hand, Zim was right, in a crowded hall of goths there were too many witnesses for both sides. Dredge obviously knew this too, he kept getting closer and closer to them until he was even within listening distance.

"I'll take this one," Zim suddenly pronounced loud and clear, handing a box to a vendor.

"What are you doing?" Gaz hissed quietly, between clenched teeth.

"For you," Zim presented the box to Gaz, "your gaze stops at this precise item whenever we pass by it."

Gaz blinked, and lifted the lid, inside was a blood-red spike-collar. She couldn't deny that she had looked at multiple times. But Zim wouldn't like what she thought of when she looked at it. Yet, Gaz couldn't deny the warmth that filled her chest with the realization that Zim had noticed, had got it for her. And… Dredge was just a few steps away… Gaz had originally chased him off with a show of affection, and now Zim was attempting to employ the same tactic.

"Well?" Zim asked.

"It's perfect," Gaz said aloud, smiling darkly. She pulled it from the box, and then she reached around Zim's neck and attached it. "Now you are my dog, forever."

Zim's fingers gently brushed the collar. Gaz did not make possessive gestures, except for her video games, there was little that she would get truly mad about having taken from her. It stung, like the venomous prick of the Juxivram's stinger. Zim _wanted_ Gaz to be that possessive of him. Despite all logic, and his military training telling him that being under anyone's thumb made him weak. If it meant he could be near Gaz, protect Gaz, he didn't mind so much. Zim leaned over to Gaz's ear.

Gaz turned her face, playing the motion up for Dredge expecting a warning or a plan.

Zim whispered, "Zim _is_ yours."

Gaz dropped the box, lurching backwards.

Zim flinched, he'd crossed the line. Of course he had, Gaz didn't want him around.

Her eyes were wide, and she promptly turned and ran.

"Gaz!" Zim called, panicking, he could see Dredge moving out of the corner of his eye. In this crowd he couldn't use any of his equipment. Zim pushed past the crowds after Gaz. Stupid, if he pushed Gaz away, how could he protect her from the Dredge-human?

"Gaz," he caught up to her, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Don't talk to me!" Gaz snapped, "Don't say that kind of stuff to me! Don't you understand anything? You idiot!"

"Gaz I won't- Zim didn't mean to-" Zim couldn't find the right words. Gaz was shaking, he didn't understand. Gaz was never afraid of him… of Dredge maybe. It wasn't cold, and she couldn't be turned on. Was she disgusted by him? That would make sense, disgusted by the alien monster.

"Hey!" Dredge's voice interrupted, Zim whirled, and saw Dredge and a half dozen other filthy humans circling around to back him up. "I dare you to try something now," Dredge sneered, "this spot has about three cameras, and I've already told the cops what you did last night."

Gaz smacked her forehead, "Dammit, Zim, what did I tell you?"

"You better get away from this guy, he's a freak," Dredge pointed with an accusatory tone.

"Filthy pig-weasel, I _will _roast your skull and scoop out your brain-meats for study."

"What did you do?" Gaz asked, crossing her arms.

"He broke my window and destroyed my computer," Dredge said.

"He was spying on you," Zim protested.

"That's ridiculous," Dredge said.

"Shut it Dredge," Gaz snapped and redirected her attention. "Why would you spy on Dredge? He's my problem, Zim, not yours."

Zim swallowed. What could he say? Could he say anything that wouldn't make Gaz hate him forever? He looked to the floor shamefully, but spotted the collar. "A guard dog," Zim pulled on the collar to show Gaz, "Zim can be a guard dog, if nothing else, can't he?"

Gaz looked at him intensely. She knew that she couldn't handle it, she didn't want Zim that close in any capacity. She started to open her mouth, when Dredge cut it, "Gaz, babe, don't tell me you'd actually consider."

"Zim," Gaz said sharply, then pointed at Dredge, "sick 'em."

Zim quickly smiled and turned towards Dredge. Then one of Dredge's friends tried to jump him from the side. Zim side-stepped quickly, before making a sharp thrust to the human's spine. The mildly paralyzing effect would wear off, this time. Then two came at him at once. The first human was flipped, his momentum was used to uppercut the second with his boots. Then it became a frenzied free-for all. Gaz momentarily was caught up in the smooth military motions of the Irken, before one of Dredge's friends jumped at her instead.

"Gaz," Zim called, his squeedly-spooch contracting suddenly, until she promptly knocked her assailant out. Unfortunately it was enough of a distraction for Zim to be caught by the arms.

A silvery glint appeared in Dredge's hand, a small switchblade.

Zim quickly scanned the area, spotting the camera's and picking his angle. The blade caught his arm, tearing through his shirt. Zim had a fraction of a second where his Pak was hidden enough to snap his spider limbs and throw off Dredge's accomplices. Then in a single swift motion he knocked the knife from Dredge, and caught the group's leader in a hold that could snap his bones at the elbow, and Dredge could feel how close to that he was.

Dredge yelped in pain, while Gaz quickly knocked out what remained of his friends.

"I thought I told you," Zim snarled.

"Forget him, Zim let's go," Gaz said.

His trigger finger twitched and Zim quickly knocked Dredge unconscious before following.

"Zim will adjust the scanner for proximity rather than perimeter, it will make Dredge easier to avoid in the future… You are undamaged, little-Gaz?"

"I'm not little, and I'm fine," Gaz replied snippily.

Zim reached up around his neck and detached the spiked collar, "Zim should return this. You only put it on Zim to chase off the Dredge-human," he wouldn't meet Gaz's eyes. "I am an invader after all, it would demean me to stoop so low as to wear anything that would mark me as the Gaz-human's love-pig."

"That's exactly why I didn't want to get if for you in the first place," Gaz huffed, about to take the collar away, when Zim's hand retracted.

"You… wanted Zim to wear it?" Zim asked softly.

Gaz flushed and turned away from his stupid penetrating gaze; from all the stupid fluttery feelings in her stomach when she thought about Zim whispering in her ear. "I wanted to humiliate you with it, that's all. I didn't expect you to actually want it."

Wanting to humiliate Zim, but choosing not to humiliate Zim, Zim ignored to obvious contradiction. "You were trembling… Was it because of Dredge? Did Dredge hurt you before?" Zim nearly growled at the thought of Dredge hurting her, but at least that was a more pleasant thought than Gaz hating him.

"No, it was nothing like that."

"Then… it really was because of Zim…" Gaz looked at the utter defeat in Zim's face.

"I was scared. You scared me," Gaz knew she would regret the choice she was making.

"You're lying, you have never feared Zim."

"I'm scared of being attracted to you, Zim." Gaz stopped crossing her arms protectively over her chest, and not meeting Zim's eyes. "I don't want to be attracted to you; which means that the most terrifying thing you can do is say something stupid that makes me think you actually like me back."

Zim looked at the earth girl. It amazed him that Gaz was scared of anything, more amazing still that she would tell him. Was that why Gaz had wanted to end the relationship? It was obvious, in retrospect, that Gaz had been trying to break up with him since the fiasco at Bloaty's. Except then there was the collar, that Gaz continued to look at, while trying to break up, she had also wanted to make a possessive gesture. She was a walking contradiction. To relieve Gaz's fear he would have to push her away. The hollow feeling was growing in his squeedly-spooch when he thought about the situation. Except, if what Gaz feared was reciprocation then if he even made a show of it, he was the one who would be in possession of her. It was selfish, and manipulative, and positively Irken.

Slowly Zim lifted the spiked collar, symbol of affection, back to his neck. He'd intended to look up at Gaz defiantly but he didn't have time. Warm lips crashed against his before he even knew Gaz had gotten so close. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and held him there. Zim felt the soft folds of skin mold against him. Sudden hunger welled up in him. His own, admittedly less articulate lips pressed back, and he wrapped his arms around Gaz's shoulders to hold her as close, as long as possible.

This was a kiss, Zim realized, Gaz was kissing him…

* * *

A/N: Okay, three cheers for reviewers, you've quickly caught up to what I have written, but since this is a free-time story don't hold your hopes too high for fast updates, because I can't even get the ones I'm really committed to to update with any sort of regularity. There's still lots of story in rough draft, but until it's ready you'll just have to enjoy what you have. Toodles.


	6. Communication Errors

Zim rolled his collar on the kitchen table in confusion. Gaz was confusing. The kiss had lasted exactly 11.587 seconds. Then instead of heading home, Gaz had dragged him around for another eight hours. Hand-holding had been reinitiated, and Gaz sort of leaned against his shoulder when they were sitting down. However, Gaz had never explicitly said that their relationship was going to continue, or given him any instruction on how to further their interactions.

Actually, even though they'd been somewhat avoiding each other for the first half of the day, Gaz seemed quieter in the second half. Zim had tried several times to initiate conversation, her replies were mostly grunts, and then she'd tighten her grip on him a fraction. Then he would check for Dredge, before starting the whole process over again. She hadn't even given him a goodnight kiss when he had dropped her off at home. Zim glared at the collar, couples were supposed to kiss, weren't they? If Gaz had already kissed him earlier that day why didn't he get one during the socially appropriate time?

Suddenly doorbell rang, pulling Zim from his contemplation. Gir was quickly moving to open the door to whatever lay beyond. Zim panicked, putting on his human disguise in a rush.

Gir opened the door, his eyes flashing blue even through the dog outfit. "It's the Gaz-human."

Zim wrenched in his seat, but only served to topple his chair, and land on the floor with an "oof" that sent his wig spinning away.

Gaz snorted at the display, "You're pathetic Zim." His antennae drooped. "I figured you would give me a call, or an e-mail, or stupidly show up outside my school again," Gaz stepped over the toppled alien male and took a seat at the kitchen table.

"You never told Zim to do any of that," the Irken protested, righting himself.

"It's called initiative, Zim," Gaz said coolly. "You can't ask me out on one date and then expect everything to just fall into place."

"I'm supposed to ask you out again?"

"Pretty much."

Zim glared at the female who seemed to have much better control of her emotional faculties than the last time that they had talked. Why did Zim have to repeatedly assert himself if Gaz had already asserted dominance with the collar? Zim acquiesced anyway, "Will you go out with Zim?"

"You're an idiot, Zim, do I have to buy you a manual?"

"There's a manual?" the alien perked.

"Of course there's not a manual, stupid," Gaz shot back. "I'm already going out with you, but we haven't _gone out_ for nearly two weeks."

"Huh?"

"Are we going to do something together? What are we doing? Where are we going? When are we doing it? _Make plans_, Zim. Think of something interesting to do together, and then call me."

"Fine," Zim groused, leaning on his hand to contemplate.

"So I _will_ see you sometime this weekend," Gaz confirmed.

"Yes, yes, Zim will find an appropriate date-outing."

"Good," Gaz said, standing up, and heading once again for the door, but as she passed Zim her lips quickly touched the side of his face. Zim brought his hand to the spot, and watched Gaz casually saunter from his base. But he leaned a little too far as she disappeared out the door, toppling his chair again.

"Blasted human sitting utensil!" he grumbled, but he didn't bother getting up just yet. The spot of warmth on his cheek still lingered; the gesture seemed to be some sort of seal of approval. "Zim will earn more approval from the Gaz-human," Zim yelled, waving his fist in the air. He just wasn't sure how yet.

Gaz snorted on the other side of the door, having heard Zim just fine. Unfortunately from this side of the door Zim was not close enough to punch. She wanted to punch him, he made the stupidest things unbearably sweet. Zim was not allowed to be sweet. Gaz adjusted her backpack, and headed for home, still thinking about him. It couldn't be healthy, the amount she thought about him, but that was Zim, freaky alien that continuously wriggled his way into her mind. Her world, where liking Zim was not an option, had come crashing around her when he had put that collar around his neck. Although she'd put on a good show in front of Zim she was still reeling from it.

First off, Zim was a better kisser than Gaz had expected, but he'd never actually said that he cared, or gave any indication that he understood why she struggled with being around him. Gaz wanted to believe the gesture, but faith in people was not her strong suit. Zim was still Zim, an Irken, to whom emotional attachments were useless and primitive. Actually, Gaz thought much the same way. Dib got emotional about everything, and Gaz had watched him struggle like a hooked fish. Gaz knew her emotional state, but she didn't want it to get in the way. By the end of _that_ day Gaz was pretty much an emotional wreck. If she had actually said anything then it would have been sappy. It took her the eight hours of events just to let go of the stupid alien's arm for crying out loud.

It couldn't happen again, Gaz would not allow it to.

"I'm home," Gaz called, walking past her father's lab.

"Daughter, there is a phone call for you, I put him on hold."

Gaz raised an eyebrow. Did Zim actually think of something already? No one else called, except maybe Dib, but her father would mention if it was Dib, and Gaz wouldn't answer if it was.

Gaz lifted the kitchen phone to her ear, "Hello?"

"Super Vampire Troglodyte is opening this weekend. Is it suitable?"

"No," Gaz replied and heard the Irken grunt in frustration. "I never see a movie opening weekend, and you can't pick the same outing twice, Zim, it gets old really fast."

"Zim will… think harder."

He hung up, and Gaz smiled. It felt weird. Although, it made sense too, there was a certain rush of power with having someone as inanely self-centered as Zim trying to please her. Gaz smiled a little wider as she thought about him sitting in his base, wracking his brain for something that would be suitable for a date.

The next call was just before dinner.

"Earth picnic?"

"Too cold, and too corny."

"Zim would not pack corn."

"Not what I meant, picnics are cheesy."

"Does that mean Zim should pack no dairy product, or an excess of them?"

"No. Zim, I mean it's cliché."

"Oh…" he hung up.

Then about an hour later.

"What is the local equivalent of… make-out point?"

"No," Gaz hung up.

Gaz was just about to brush her teeth when the phone rang once again.

"Hello?"

"Gaz-human," there was a long pause.

"What is it Zim?"

"Zim will… accompany you to Bloaty's."

Now Gaz was the silent one.

"Gaz-human?" Zim asked. "Is the date acceptable?"

Gaz snapped back to reality. "No, it's not Zim, I do like Bloaty's, and I will make you go there again sometime, but you're missing the point."

"Yes, Zim could not find the make-out point," he grumbled.

"Shut up and listen for a minute," Gaz snipped. "You don't have to pick something specifically to please me, and you don't have to pick something because the earth movies told you to. Pick something that _you_ like to do. Seriously, make a list of the things that you do with your free time, and find something that you think I might enjoy as well, or even something that you have no idea if I will like it or not, but that you will continue to do regardless."

"So for the next date… you want to do something that Zim already does?"

"You can even keep the list for future reference," Gaz droned sarcastically.

"Very well then, Invader Zim, signing off."

Gaz hung up the phone and let out a soft sigh. It wasn't something she would hold against him, but Gaz knew that Zim wouldn't score any points if she had to tell him what to do constantly. Gaz grabbed her tube of toothpaste, squeezing it over her brush. Maybe she would ask her father to invent something to make brushing less of a hassle. Her reflection looked tired. Gaz knew when she was tired but she rarely ever looked it. She knew why, of course, Zim was tiring. Even when she spelled stuff out she worried about him, and wondered what kind of stupid stunt he was likely to pull.

No one was worth this kind of effort. At least, that what Gaz wanted to believe, she knew that somewhere in the back of her mind was the little chit that clamoured _Zim's worth it. _And now it was in the front of her mind. Gaz groaned with annoyance and spat her toothpaste into the sink, stomping to her room. _He _was _willing to go to Bloaty's_, Gaz remembered, and her stomping eased as her confusion grew. Zim didn't actually care, he was just trying to earn her approval, whatever achievement he believed that to be. Gaz flopped into her pillow with a grunt. Zim was too tiring to think about. He could figure it out on his own, Gaz decided, just as she slipped into a deep slumber.

The phone rang.

Gaz winced as her sleep was interrupted. "Zim?" Gaz asked, as she lifted the receiver to her ear.

"Zim has determined the perfect outing."

Gaz flopped over, and noted the clock, "It's three in the fucking morning!"

"But-"

"I don't know if you remember this, _Zim_," Gaz said his name with disdain, "but unlike you oh-so-superior Irkens, humans need sleep. Grow some fucking briancells!" Gaz hung up, before tossing the phone across the room.

"Incinerate!" she commanded, and her plush toy security system zapped the offending electronic.

Pointless, of course, it only meant that she would have to buy a replacement for the phone, but it relieved the frustration enough for her to fall back asleep.

Zim didn't call back in the morning. Gaz knew that she shouldn't be worrying about it, but it occupied her thoughts during school. She'd check for e-mail or text messages during class breaks. And during class she was mostly looking through things than at anything in particular.

"Are you okay?"

Gaz flinched. But then forced herself to calm down, it was only Maddy.

Once Gaz had sat down and thought about how she dealt with others. She had determined that she only had two settings. First was loathing, which normally entailed ignoring a person, possibly muttering insults under her breath, and if the person made themselves enough of a nuisance, outright homicidal tendencies. This category was most of the human race. Second was tolerance, which normally entailed ignoring the person, but avoided any death threats if they did, for whatever reason, approach her. Maddy was in the second category.

"I'm fine," Gaz said flatly.

"You're considerably less violent than usual."

That made Gaz pause. If any other human being could judge her mood with any accuracy it would probably be Maddy. Despite having been hit in the face with a whole turkey in the third grade, Maddy was not overtly scared of Gaz. Maddy successfully avoided Gaz in a bad mood, and had obviously survived long enough to be in the second category at all.

It was then that Gaz noticed that the class had ended, and emptied without her. "I'm a little distracted, that's all," Gaz allowed, keeping her voice monotone and casual as she got up from her seat.

"Are we doing the science project together?"

By the way that Maddy asked, it was obvious that groups were optional. Mandatory group work was probably why Gaz had people that she tolerated to begin with. Maddy was intelligent enough not to drag Gaz's grades, and most of the other students were too scared of her too not get annoying after five minutes.

"Sure, whatever," Gaz headed towards the front door.

"Are you okay with the genetics topic?" Maddy followed, at a safe distance, just outside of arm's reach. "I was thinking either the genetics or anatomy, but I know you're more into the chemical sciences."

"Anything is fine," Gaz replied, feeling uncomfortable. She wasn't likely to do anything violent, not to Maddy anyway, but she didn't want to be around someone who was asking too many questions. Gaz leaned against the heavy metal door of the school, turning her attention to the outside world, and froze.

Zim was leaning up against the bike racks, waiting for her.

Then Gaz realized that she actually had three settings. There was loathing, there was tolerance, and then there was Zim.

"Is that Zim?" Maddy asked.

"Fuck," Gaz said in barely a whisper, and whirled back into the building. "Forgot something, just e-mail me the details," she informed Maddy. Zim was not supposed to show up outside school; not when classes were ending and everyone would see him, see her talking to him, or worse, hear them talking and be able to derive the current nature of their interactions.

Gaz did what any sane female teenager would in the face of possible embarrassment and social humiliation, she hid in the bathroom.

* * *

A/N: Hey look, you got a new chapter. You mostly have the new image function to thank for my cranking this out. But all the reviews were awesome too. Anyway, so there is now a cover page for this story. It's the scene from chapter one that started it all, drawn on my touch screen phone, because I lack art programs at the moment.


	7. The Perfect Outing as Devised by Zim

Zim waved awkwardly at the passing students. Some of these pathetic human life forms still recognized him. That might be bad for his mission. Infiltration was sometimes simply a matter of not being recognized afterwards. The more familiar any human was with his appearance the more likely that one might recognize him in another disguise. Although, that might have had more to do with the fact that he was presently attempting to be recognizable. After all, it wouldn't do to come to pick up his love-pig if she had no idea who he was. With that in mind Zim glanced at his timekeeping device. Gaz was approximately fifteen minutes late. That wasn't a good sign. If Zim remembered correctly Gaz tended to leave straight after class, if she wasn't then something had gone wrong. Perhaps attacking a student had earned her a detention, or perhaps his sleep disturbing phone call had made Gaz unable to attend school.

A sudden pain shot up Zim's arm, his attention became drawn to the sullen earth teenager that glared at him and crossed her arms. "What on earth was that for?" Zim asked, rubbing his wounded arm, it would likely bruise from the force of Gaz's punch.

"What do you think you're doing," Gaz hissed, her cheeks pink, "showing up outside my school, where everyone can see you?"

"You told Zim to," he huffed. "Yesterday you said that expected Zim to call, e-mail, and show up outside your school. Now you have yelled at Zim for calling and for showing up outside your school, should Zim expect the same outcome from the e-mails as well?"

"I said showing up outside my school would be stupid," Gaz countered hotly. Then letting out an exhausted breath, she calmed herself enough to address the problem, "_Why_ are you here?"

"Zim has planned the perfect date-outing, as chosen by the list of Zim's regular activity."

"And you couldn't just call me after school because?"

"Because, little-Gaz, the magical love adventure begins now!" Zim yelled with pride in his voice. An arm stretched from his Pak, and quickly accepted the rubbery black gloves, before Zim reached out and entwined his fingers with Gaz's hand.

Gaz's cheeks became even brighter, but she fell into paced beside him, "Fine, Zim, just know that if you're going to waste my time, I will have to destroy you."

Zim walked her back to his base, then into one of the elevators that led down to Zim's real base.

Throughout all of Zim's time on earth, Gaz had been permitted entrance into the underbelly of Zim's base only three times, and only in dire circumstance. She'd broken in a half dozen other times, but Zim did not simply just _let_ someone into his base. Those little escapades into Zim's base had pretty much ended once Zim wasn't actively threatening earth. The elevator was smaller than Gaz remembered. It was horrible, even though she could school her face into a deadpan expression, she could not stop the rush of heat as blood coloured her face as she leaned against Zim.

It was vaguely reminiscent of when he had handed her his gun at Bloaty's. Letting Gaz into his base was something very vulnerable and un-Irken. That's what real relationships were about though, Gaz leaned against Zim a little more as she thought about it. Even if Zim was an alien and couldn't really understand the concept, it seemed like there was something in him that knew, something instinctual. He was letting her in and she was letting him in, little by little. Gaz vaguely wondered how close she could get before his lifetime of military programming kicked in, and he found that closeness with a human was detestable.

The elevator door swung open, and Zim led Gaz into an empty room. "Okay… empty rooms are not really good date material, Zim."

Zim pulled out a control system, for a minute he rapidly turned the main dial, and the room around them swirled with various locations and activities. It was some sort of hologram projecting room, Gaz watched the scenes pass by until Zim settled it into a room that looked like a firing range. Two little desks with full controls and monitors looked out across a long empty lane. Zim typed a few commands into the control panel and a cardboard cut-out with a rippled bulls-eye effect popped up the other end. "As a militant species, regular training ensures that a soldier is ready for deployment at any time. How would you like to shoot some hostile species?" Zim lifted up a simple laser, "Think of it as one of your earth video games," and Gaz couldn't resist a dark smile as she took the weapon.

Lasers were so much more elegant than conventional human weapons. Gaz had been to a firing range only once, and decided that she didn't like it. No matter how controlled the explosion, that was what human guns were, it was tough and gritty, and not something Gaz wanted to repeat. Laser fire, on the other hand was like handling a silk thread. Delicate, deadly, and, "Near miss?" Gaz demanded of the result that flashed on the screen next to her.

"If you don't score at least a thousand points, I'm never touching you again," Zim threatened teasingly, making Gaz flush and growl angrily at him. He typed in the same commands in his own side and another, roughly humanoid figure appeared down his lane. He lifted his weapon, and Gaz watched the words "kill shot" flash on his monitor.

With another growl, she aimed and fired again and "injury" flashed on her monitor. Then Zim's pop-up fell and another shape, large, with another set of vital points popped up. "Dammit," Gaz growled, before she continued firing.

"Having trouble, little Gaz?" Zim asked.

"Shut up, Zim," Gaz snapped, finally the words "kill shot" appeared on her screen and her pop-up changed, only a half-second before Zim's.

Gaz growled again, ignoring her stupid screen, and focussed on shooting the target instead. After about a dozen aliens, Zim's stopped popping up, and he took his laser and started firing on Gaz's targets. "What? You can't do that!" Gaz snapped.

"An enemy on the field is a threat no matter who is supposed to kill it," Zim countered, and Gaz glared at him, since his shots were still counting up "kill shots" on his own monitor.

"You cheating alien scum," Gaz yelled, sounding more like her brother she ever wanted to. Zim, surprising, didn't seem taken aback but he continued to steal her points until her set of targets was finished as well. "Calculate the score, now!" Gaz demanded, putting the laser down and crossing her arms at Zim. Zim tapped their control panels, and numbers rolled past in a list of shots made the number of "miss" shots, "near miss" shots, "hit" shots, "mild injury" shots, "injury" shots, "serious injury", "grave injury", "fatal wound", "kill shot", "instant death" and lastly "overkill" shots. It was obvious even through that that Zim's scores were much higher than Gaz's, at the bottom was a total damage score. Zim's neared a half million, Gaz's was just under a hundred thousand.

"Less than a thousand points, huh?"

"Zim never said it was a hard goal."

Gaz slugged his shoulder, the same shoulder, which made Zim wince in pain. Then Gaz noted her scorecard blink with an extra five hundred points, putting her over the hundred thousand mark. "It's real flattering to know that the bar you set for me was so low," Gaz crossed her arms angrily.

"Three points," Zim said loudly, catching the female's attention, "that is how much damage Zim did the first time shooting."

"Seriously?" Gaz looked at him, "how did you only score three points?"

"Zim may have accidentally shot his own foot," Zim looked at the wall, listening to Gaz snort in derision. "Besides, Zim's threat was merely to motivate you to perform well, Zim did not doubt that the Gaz-human had ability enough to surpass the necessary damage points." Gaz huffed in frustration again, it didn't make sense, why would Zim deliberately tease her and try to make her mad. "Unlike Gaz, Zim is very inclined to touch his love-pig," Zim explained with a childish pout.

The heat ran to Gaz's cheeks and she whirled away from him. Zim was not allowed to say that kind of stuff, he wasn't supposed to, she had told him not to. Damn him, and his stupid displays of affection. So Zim liked to touch her, it was curiosity, a fascination with a novel tactile experience; it was not the rush of attraction that Gaz felt whenever he touched her. Zim didn't have a sex drive. Zim was Irken, and everything that entailed, his biological inclination was domination, superiority, there wasn't room for affection in that mindset. Whatever this was, she would hit a wall, Zim was just weird and outgoing enough that he could fake it. Zim had formed friendships before, Gaz had seen Dib's notes on the topic before. Zim could give every outward display of friendship or attachment, and never look at the human again. To some extent Zim could let anyone in. Gaz couldn't, her walls were front and center. Maddy, her brother, even her father, no one was allowed past those walls. Zim couldn't be allowed either. Even though his every sweet gesture chipped away at the emotional stonework, Gaz could not let her walls crumble. If he got past her walls when she hit his, she wasn't sure if she could survive it.

"Gaz-human?" Zim asked, apparently Gaz had gotten lost in thought. He sounded so sweet and concerned, Gaz hardened her glare. She had to get to his walls, find the point where he would push her away before it got out of hand, before she crumbled.

"Why are you still in your disguise?" Gaz demanded. "I know you're an alien. You know that I know. We're in your base. There's no one else here. Take it off."

"It wouldn't make you uncomfortable?" Zim asked, in a sultry whisper that told Gaz he was still in the mood to tease her.

"Makes no difference to me what you look like down here," Gaz said crossing her arms, "I just can't image a wig being comfortable over antennae."

"It isn't," Zim took of the net of hair, "and the lenses are all scratchy," he took those out as well. "Must be easier to be grumpy as something that looks less human, eh?"

"How do you get an overkill shot?" Gaz asked, changing the subject.

"With a simple laser," Zim started typing in Gaz's controls, and one of the pop-ups that Gaz had seen earlier reappeared. "The gashlorg-beast is the only species that you could get an overkill shot on. They are famous for being able to create the loudest organic sound ever. Their nasal cavity is filled with compressed air, that they can use to trumpet loud enough to communicate across mountain ranges. Normally when a gashlorg-beast dies their nasal cavity slowly deflates making a small hissing sound, but if you can fire a heated laser blast up its nostril then the compressed air will escape in an explosion."

Gaz grabbed the laser gun, and squinted at the cut-out, then, very gently, Zim's arm reached up around her steadying and aiming the shot. "Overkill Shot" flashed in blood-red across Gaz's screen.

"Of course, you don't experience the full effect unless we switch to gore mode," with the press of a button the cut-out disappeared, and in its place was a hulking, frothing beast, panting and occasionally shuffling its stance. Once again, Zim helped with Gaz's aim, and once she squeezed the trigger: A resounding bang rippled across the firing range, pushing back Gaz's hair. Orange hued blood, and a variety of guts splattered across the firing range. The beast's upper torso was devastated, and the lower torso flopped uselessly to the ground. "Overkill Shot" flashed across the screen once more.

Gaz's ears were ringing, but she could feel Zim's breath on her cheek even though she couldn't hear him, and his arms wrapped her, protectively. Then she realized she was shaking. She wasn't afraid though, it was just the sudden jump of adrenaline.

Zim relaxed, Gaz was bouncing slightly, and smiling brightly. "I can't hear you," she yelled at him. Now Zim snorted, he'd forgotten that human ears stopped registering noise if they became overwhelmed. Still it seemed like he had pleased the human female with the addition of visible carnage. Zim held up on finger, the human indicator of time frame, and started to type more instructions into the console.

The shooting range cleared of blood and guts and another alien creature materialized. This looked like a feathered stingray, and Gaz tilted her head to the side curiously. Then Zim handed her another gun, it was cold to the touch, and steaming? Zim would explain it later, for now his hands guided her aim, the two handed weapon required him to practically wrap himself around her and Gaz fired a white crystal shaped bolt at the flying alien's stomach. The creature turned inside out from the wound, before it even hit the ground and bubbled into an awkward mess.

Gaz recoiled in disgust, but then she started laughing, her whole body shook from the convulsions of her diaphragm. Zim could feel the tremors running up his arms, and through his torso. The sensation tingled across his muscles, and every other thought eased away.

When her laughter died down, he typed in another setting, and the leftover goop of the stingray bird, was replaced with a fuzzy, prickly looking rodent. And he handed Gaz a grenade. This time he didn't have to explain, this was a human weapon, and clearly labelled "tear gas". Gaz pulled the pin, and lobbed the chemical weapon across the room, through the smoke she could see the rat-creature convulse, and bleed lime-green ooze from every pore before it lay dead. Still Gaz laughed, and her golden brown eyes sparkled.

Zim leaned back, watching her enjoyment. Without a doubt, it was the perfect outing; even if they hadn't gone anywhere. Did that make it an inning? Zim would have to ask Gaz for language clarification once she had regained her sense of hearing.

Then her golden brown eyes locked onto him, her laughing died, except for one gentle huff of air. Then she purposefully strode over, and put her palm against his face, bringing her lips to the other side, and kissing his cheek. Then, before he could find an appropriate, non-vocal, response, Gaz turned on her heel and marched to the elevator.

He hadn't even gotten to show her the brain-cell experiment she requested.

* * *

A/N: Is it just me, or are the chapters starting to have a greater feel of continuity? Meh, don't matter. One thing that might be interesting to note is that this particular date once led to a full-on make-out session. Which means that this fic keeps getting longer against my will. More story for you, more work for me. They're progressing, slowly, but then Gaz was always more the type to beat up a guy before being in any way romantic, Zim should consider himself lucky that she hasn't gone psycho dominatrix on his ass.

Anyway, I seem to be off on tangents today. Review please, it makes me work faster unless I hit writer's block city. Although since I'm actually less devoted to this particular fic that's less likely to happen.


	8. Inferior Human Organs

Gaz tapped the screen of her GSP blatantly ignoring the teacher. They were used to it. Plus, it was math class. If the teacher asked she could rattle off the answers to every chalkboard equation he had up. She wouldn't though. She didn't care enough to do that. Straight A's on ever tests, but her homework still ended up in the trash. She had more important things to do, like beating Vampire Piggy Reborn. The game automatically paused to flash a piggy holding a letter on the screen. Gaz glared. How was she supposed to beat her game when Zim kept e-mailling her? Gaz didn't even bother opening it, she already knew what it was about, Zim would be asking about her ears.

_Has your hearing recovered? _

_No permanent damage? _

_Has it been tested? _

_Zim has superior Irken testing equipment if you need it._

_Have you seen an earth-doctor?_

_Irken medical treatment is far superior. _

_Zim demands to know the condition of his love-pig._

All of which had been in separate e-mails of course. Zim was too much of a scatterbrain to form his thoughts in a coherent manner. Gaz had only managed to put up with it because he ended every e-mail with "Love, Zim". Although she was not proud that a single word made his idiocy somehow more tolerable, she was well aware that he got special treatment. Gaz would have preferred if he just fit right into her usual paradigms of interaction, before they started going out Zim would have classified as just another person that she loathed. She could brush off the occasional tolerance under the precedence of a good mood. But after Zim showed up at her school she knew she neither loathed him, no tolerated him. She didn't want to give it a label, but Zim was the only individual who could quickly swing her mood from loathing to something very_ not_ loathing. Her other boyfriends had fallen into tolerance territory, she had managed to be occasionally sociable and did not have the urge to kill them. She had the urge to kill Zim, regularly, but then he would say something sweet, or even give her a look that would instantaneously make her want to do even less appropriate things to him, most of which he couldn't actually do, but that was beside the point. Gaz let out a sigh and pulled open the e-mail anyway.

_Gaz,_  
_Obey, or Zim shall show up at your school again.  
Love, Zim_

Gaz twitched, where did he get off threatening her? Gaz's fingers hit the controls in a flurry.

_Hey stupid,  
I'm fine. I told you I was fine; multiple times. I don't care what earth-relationship labels you've been given, you do not coddle me. If you send one more e-mail about it or show up at random I __**will**__ beat you into a rubbery green paste.  
Love, Gaz_

Gaz paused, deleted the word "love" and then sent it. The GSP didn't need all that stuff like phone, e-mail, and internet access in her opinion anyway. It only made things more difficult when she wanted to ignore someone. Of course, her game of vampire piggy had somehow un-paused itself and gotten her killed. She snarled at the infernal contraption before restarting from her last save-point.

A few blocks from the school, Zim's computer trilled pleasantly, a tune he'd specifically picked for communications coming from Gaz. It was programmed to route past the house to wherever he was, much easier than trying to update the robo-parents programming for "dating" protocols. Usually he didn't even turn the outdated contraptions on anymore, he was always at the base, and was considered old enough to be home alone by human standards. The e-mail opened automatically and displayed on one of his screens.

"Squealing fool," Zim hollered, "does she really believe that her lame threats will cow me into submission?" He started to type but paused, "But Gaz has already asserted her relational dominance, it will do no good to rock the boat, at least not when I have nothing in place to monitor her physical reaction." He growled and deleted the short start of his note, letters disappearing one by one; d-e-i-r-r-o-w, s-i, m-i-z, gone, then Zim closed the e-mail program with a huff. "Tonight I shall call the Gaz-human and perform a simple diagnostic over the telephone," he said decidedly before returning to his earlier project.

Zim looked over the data that was printing off in long sheets of colored lines and time stamps. He would probably be dead if Gaz ever found out he had it. His date plans had not been quite as innocent as Gaz probably would have liked. All training facilities were equipped with the monitoring necessary to assess an Irken's physical state. Monitoring which could also be applied to human visitors. Zim looked at the readouts of body chemistry and physical reaction from Gaz's inferior human organs as if every tiny blip were the secret to conquering the planet. They very well might have been, but that wasn't actually what Zim was concerned with. Zim carefully overlaid two printouts, watching lines rising and falling. The first was Gaz, but the second was himself. He had compared the two in hopes that they would match, that it would somehow reveal some secret to human mating rituals. But the results of Gaz's body chemistry were much steadier than his own.

Something was wrong. Irkens did not experience fluctuating body chemistry. The Pak was constantly active to handle Irken blood-work, filtering unnecessary chemicals, and flooding the system when such chemicals were required. There were three possibilities that could cause such a thing. Perhaps his Pak was malfunctioning and had stopped filtering his blood. Perhaps there was a malfunction that was randomly dripping chemicals into his bloodstream. Or perhaps the Pak was fine and just lacing his blood stream with the appropriate chemicals to pursue the superiority of wooing Gaz. Zim preferred the last option, but he would let the house run a diagnostic on the Pak to be certain. He had made enough modifications since his arrival on earth to suppose that something might by awry within the metal casing that fused to his spine.

Aside from an unexpected reading from his computer, Zim didn't see anything wrong with his physical or mental state. Perhaps it was just the computer's malfunction. That seemed even more plausible. He'd had to replace the home computer a half dozen times already. The invader class temporary base wasn't really designed to remain functional for so long.

"Computer," Zim called, "run a complete self-diagnostic, I think you're malfunctioning again."

"Command confirmed," the computer said with a tired drone, then waited for Zim to leave the room, "I wasn't, but would he believe me if I just said it? No, of course not."

"Hey, Gaz," Maddy leaned across her desk in the last class of the day, and Gaz immediately glared. "You seem less distracted," Maddy managed a disconcerted half-smile, and Gaz let her glare fade, at least back to its normal level. She was mad at Zim, not Maddy, and upcoming projects required her to at least be minimally sociable.

"If this isn't about the science project you should stop talking right now," Gaz warned. She was not in the mood for chit-chat, not with a growing sense that Zim would come to pick her up despite what she told him.

"It's four people to a group, so we're doing it in sections," Maddy handed over the paper, "my sections are the yellow, yours are the blue, but we can switch sections, or even topics if you want."

"It's fine," Gaz barely looked at the sheet, but she could make an assignment out of anything so she didn't really need to look at it. "I'll e-mail it to you once it's done."

The bell rang, and Gaz glanced at the sheet. Seems they ended up with anatomy, and she was doing anatomy and growth, covering sections about hormones and physical changes throughout the lifetime. Dull, but easily doable, Gaz headed for the school library, if she was seen backing away from the door twice because of Zim then she didn't want to have to explain herself to Maddy or anyone else. She grabbed three appropriate books and wrote down a handful of others to put in her reference list even if she wasn't going to bother reading them.

When she stepped out of the school Zim wasn't there. Gaz reminded herself that she didn't want him to come in the first place, and she was relieved rather than disappointed. It didn't actually change the fact that she **was** just a little disappointed that he hadn't shown up. Whether she felt that way or not, it wouldn't show on her face.

Gaz shuffled her backpack, full of books, and started the walk for home. She opened the door and froze. At least a dozen floating screens filled her living room.

"Ah, daughter, perfect timing," a screen with Professor Membrane's face glided over. "Gather around everyone, this is my daughter, Gaz, she's less intelligent than my son, but is better adjusted socially."

"I'm really not," Gaz muttered to herself. "Well, since you're going to be busy over here, I'm going to go do my homework at my boyfriend's house."

"Haha, of course, honey," a mechanical hand ruffled Gaz's hair, leaving her eye to twitch in rage as the floating screens started to make their way towards the kitchen.

"In India she would have a fiancé chosen for her by now," one of the world leaders commented.

Gaz slammed the door on her way out. It was stunts like_ this_ that made Gaz loathe her father. Especially when he compared her with Dib, which he was wrong about. Dib was stupid. In terms of grades they would be evenly matched, except that Gaz didn't do any homework worth less than five percent of her overall grade. However Dib was just completely unsuccessful at having anything akin to common sense. As for social adjustment, her father was still wrong. Dib grew up getting bullied, and he never fought back with his fists. Gaz would beat anyone who insulted her into a bloodied pulp. As the years went on Dib had friends, steady friends, and now that he was in college he would find even more. Gaz avoided everyone, threatened her closest thing to a friend, and regularly wanted to fillet her boyfriend.

Gaz blinked, she was actually thinking of Zim as her boyfriend now. The realization left her stopped just outside his fence. Well, maybe it showed just how unadjusted she was, that the only person that she felt any real connection to wasn't even her own species. Gaz stepped over the precipice and the gnomes turned to watch her, as she rang the doorbell.

The computer trilled pleasantly in the underbelly of the base.

Eyes lighting up as he opened the door, Gir immediately leapt onto Gaz's leg, "Have you come to take the pickles? You can't have them! You can't have them!"

"I hate you," Gaz said, not bothering to remove the robot before stepping into the house and throwing her bag onto the couch. "Gir, do you like your master being sad?"

"No?" the little robot looked up confused.

"Well if you don't let go of my leg, I am going to make your master very sad," Gaz explained. "I will break you, Gir, into a thousand tiny pieces, and I'm pretty sure that will make Zim sad. Then I'm going to beat up Zim, for ever letting you touch me." An elevator from opened up, with Zim inside, "Now Gir, let go," Gaz commanded simply.

Gir let out a frightened squeak and climbed off Gaz's leg.

"How, how did you do that?" Zim demanded, "That little robot _never_ listens to me."

"Don't be sad master," Gir clung to Zim's leg instead.

Gaz merely grunted, flopping onto the couch, and started unpacking her bag. "What are you doing here?" Zim asked, sounding disgruntled, but that might have been because of Gir.

"My dad is an idiot, so I'm going to sit on your couch and do my homework for the next couple of hours."

"What, just like that you come barging in here without any notice?"

"Yep," Gaz flipped open a book.

"What," Zim struggled with Gir, "stupid human social convention, allows you to come into my home-"

"You're my boyfriend," Gaz said simply, "that stupid human social convention."

"Zim is allowed to do the same to you?"

"Of course not," Gaz said easily.

"Who makes up these rules?" Zim asked, momentarily giving up on Gir.

"Genetics, human males typically have a stronger sex drive then females, add on equal rights, and the result is: girlfriends make all the rules."

"Can Zim be informed of these rules before they're walking uninvited into my base?"

"No, they mostly get made up on the fly," Gaz said.

"Can I at least examine your ears while you're here?"

"Nope."

Zim flopped onto the couch with a pout, "Stupid girlfriend rules, Zim tries to take responsibility for damaging his love-pig's auditory functions, girlfriend won't even let Zim stop worrying about her."

Gaz blinked, as Zim's mutterings continued in Irken for a minute, during which time Gir got bored and ran away after some imaginary butterfly or something. Zim's concern was kind of sweet, once she got past the annoyance of constant e-mails. At least he didn't repeat himself; he just tended to hit the send button before thinking things through. Gaz leaned over and touched his cheek with her lips, which magically silenced his grumbling. "You have fifteen minutes to test my hearing; just don't hook me up to anything too ridiculous."

"Victory for Zim," he shot his arms in the air, before stripping a glove. Wrapping his now bare hand around Gaz's, he called, "Computer, open the entrance to the medical room," before another elevator popped open.

"I don't know why my hearing is such a big deal to you, I told you I was fine," Gaz rolled her eyes, but there was a warmth in her belly, and a small smile on her face.

"If you lost your hearing, how would you know how amazing I am?" Zim asked, before getting promptly slugged in the shoulder. Gaz pulled her hand away and crossed her arms, she should've known better.

"What is your problem?" Zim asked flailing his arms as Gaz stepped out of the elevator. "One minute you are kissing Zim's cheek, the next you are punching me. Do you have brain worms or do your inferior human organs merely pump enough infernal chemicals in your body to make you crazy?"

"Fifteen minutes, Zim, do you want to play doctor, or are you going to spend it all complaining about my mood swings?"

Zim grumbled slightly, telling Gaz where to sit before sorting through his equipment, then he handed Gaz what looked like headphones from the 1980s. "I will play a spectrum of volumes and tones, while measuring the movement within your cochlea."

"So long as I don't have to actually do anything," Gaz leaned back into the seat, which was obviously not designed for a human spine, while the odd range of sound played.

"Done," Zim offered his hand to help Gaz up, but she refused it with the swat of her hand.

"I'm going back upstairs," Gaz informed him.

"Mmhmm," Zim said, watching the results print off from his computer. He looked over the data, seeing clearly where there was degradation in the human female's ear. "Of course, who can say if that's Zim-related damage or not, since human ears naturally wear out over time. I'll have to compare it to an… earlier scan..."

Zim brought his palm to his forehead. He'd gotten Gaz mad at him for data that was completely useless.

* * *

A/N: Woot, anywho, the cover image changed to a scene that refuses to be written, at least in this chapter. Is it odd that I can see relational progress going on here? I mean, it looks like a lot of slightly fluffy nothing doesn't it? Are Zim and Gaz actually making progress? Backpedalling? Give me a review and tell me what you think.


	9. Hormones

Why did Zim have to be so… Zim? Gaz groaned, rolling over in her bed. She couldn't have stupid dreams about someone cool, or even someone normal, nope. She had a crush on the alien, and her subconscious was more than willing to provide evidence.

If the other day had ended with her storming away she would've been better off. No, stupid Zim had to come crawling back, with some stupid attempts to appease her.

_ Zim carefully poked his head around the kitchen wall. Gaz was still in his living room, her homework spread out across his couch. He took a deep breath to mentally prepare himself for the potential ass kicking, and then stepped forward. _

_ "What do you want now, Zim?" Gaz had asked, without looking up as he approached. She'd known he was there long before he'd gathered his courage._

_ "Observe, Gaz-human," Zim commanded before being glared at. Zim flinched slightly as that look of hate hit him, but he continued what he was doing. He lifted up the red collar and clipped it around his neck. "Zim shall acquiesce to human social protocol. Therefore Zim is pleased that his home is acceptable to his love-pig and will reprogram his computer to accommodate her coming over unannounced."_

It was stupid, and inane, so why in the world did it work like a magic charm? After a minute or so of wondering if she could make Zim sweat through the silence she'd called him up onto the couch. Next thing she knew they were practically cuddling. Maybe she'd started it, what with leaning on his arm. Then he just couldn't get comfortable without wrapping his arm around her waist. Gaz could ignore that, and for a while she did. Meanwhile Zim had poked his head over her textbook apparently browsing the selection with her. The snuggling proper wouldn't have gone on as long as it did if Zim hadn't started on seals of approval.

_ "The kiss on the cheek, it is a seal of approval isn't it?" Gaz had assumed that Zim was looking for his typical pat on the back._

_ "Yes, Zim, the kisses mean you're doing a good job."_

Gaz could **still** feel that kiss, the tickle of his breath and the gentle feathering of his thin alien lips. She brought her hand to her cheek in her bed, just as she had when he'd first given it to her.

After that his hand started moving, trailing gentle tingles across Gaz's ribs. Naturally she would've pushed Zim away by that point, except that she was still reeling from that kiss, even if it was just on her cheek. And, damn his fingers felt good. Instead of doing what she should have done, Gaz had leaned further into his chest with a pleasured hum.

_ "Is there anywhere else Gaz would like me to kiss," Zim had asked in sultry whisper._

_ That's when Gaz had trembled, and Zim had purred, and Gaz had snapped back to her senses and pushed the alien off the couch._

_ "You're distracting me Zim! Go lurk somewhere else while I'm doing my homework," she had yelled, flustered. And, of course, Zim complied. And, of course, five minutes later she was missing him. _

All of which, of course, led to her night being full of hot and bothered what-if scenarios.

"Idiot," Gaz muttered into her pillow, not quite certain if it was for Zim or herself she was berating with that one. She wanted sleep, proper sleep, that wasn't filled with Zim's odd little purr.

Gaz pulled out her Game Slave Portable. A few rounds of Zombiefied would hopefully get her brain of the alien enough to catch a couple hours of shut-eye. Except that to get to Zombiefied meant that Gaz had to see the date and time… she was meeting Zim for a trip to the local science center in four hours. Goodbye sleep. Goodbye possibility of not obsessively thinking about Zim.

Most of her morning was spent cussing Zim or herself under her breath while primping. Gaz didn't primp. Gaz was disgusted by the people who did primp, and regularly told them as much. So once she had primped herself to the point of looking like she had actually been primping she went through completely un-primping and subsequently re-primping.

Hormones were stupid. The Irken race was definitely on to something when they eliminated the pesky chemicals entirely.

Once Gaz was too frustrated to care, she headed for the kitchen to grab some food. Going without food would only make her all the more cranky. When she entered the kitchen, her father quickly folded the newspaper, "Daughter, we need to talk."

Not too far away from Gaz's early morning primp-fest Zim was himself primping. Of course, Zim would never be so petty as to worry about pleasing the senses of the human female. No, his primping was strictly a matter of optimum disguise. He wanted to monitor his vitals. The computer scan had turned up clean, which meant that the strange fluctuations in body chemistry were actually occurring somewhere between his own body and Pak protocols. He implanted a small chemical trigger which would constantly read his blood work into the spiked cuff he'd worn to that gothic convention. Gaz had seemed pleased with that outfit. So Zim modified it once more, this time using his typical red long sleeve rather than a black shirt. Hopefully it would appear casual enough for an outing to a science center.

Gaz hadn't spoken to him after he'd made her tremble while doing homework on his couch. They hadn't really gotten to talk much before that either. For this date she'd just sent him an e-mail giving him the details and when to pick her up.

He left his base, pulling up to the Membrane household only a few short moments later. Gaz stepped out the door, and the cuff immediately beeped. A press of a button and a small screen blinked the change in chemicals. The vehicle door closed with a slam, and Zim turned his attention to the human female, "Gaz-human, are you-"

"Just, drive, Zim," she cut off his concern. Zim frowned; it was always the concern for her that she stifled. Concern for the physical and emotional state of his love-pig wasn't outside of the bounds of human mating ritual, so why did Gaz seem to object to it? They drove in silence while Gaz glared out the window with her arms crossed.

Gaz was mad, it was the only plausible conclusion that Zim came to. It made him regret the clothing choice... lacking his gloves... with nothing to do, the bare skin was rather irritating, but the cuff required skin contact, so it couldn't be helped anyway. Zim had wanted to measure his reactions to earth girl and she was busy being grumpy at him. What had he done to upset her this time? Of course, there was also the question of whether or not he could ask about what he did. So far it seemed like he had to guess at what he did to make Gaz angry, with little success, or else find some way to appease her that did not require knowledge of his transgression. Dating did not make good experimental research into the human female's psyche. Actually... any attempts to access this particular human female's psyche seemed like a bad idea. Gaz was naturally volatile, a very admirable trait in many respects, except that it made attempts at interpersonal relations strained.

"You're making stupid faces," Zim glanced over, Gaz was watching him in reflection of the window. "What is it?"

"Oh, uh, nothing," Zim answered quickly, but immediately regretted the lost chance to inquire about Gaz's mood.

Gaz turned her head to look at the green boy properly, "You know you're a bad liar, right?"

"What?! I'm not lying... you're... are you mad?"

"At you? Not yet, but I'm thinking about it."

"So you are mad, but about something unrelated to Zim?"

"I'm always mad about something," Gaz said almost playfully, "my dad is hopeless, my brother is stupid, my boyfriend is an alien who may one day chose to conquer my planet, my teachers are retarded, my classmates are loud and obnoxious, there is garbage in the water and poison in the sky, so humanity is pretty much screwed, not that most of us are even worth saving, so there's plenty to hate."

"What is your hate directed at today, specifically?" Zim asked as they stopped in the parking lot.

Gas let out a sigh, Zim clearly didn't understand about skirting around a topic. She did want to get it off her chest... "I'm mad, because at the last minute my loud and obnoxious classmates decided that they wanted our group project to revolve around an exhibition at this crappy place, which is geared towards five-year-olds. I'm mad at myself, for actually thinking that it might be entertaining if I had you along to insult the total stupidity of it all, because now that you've asked I have to ruin the whole day by saying that we're going to Bloaty's afterwards."

The cuff beeped.

"What was that?" Gaz was steel faced.

"What?" it beeped again, "That? That's nothing, it's not important, just an alarm... I um... left an experiment going back in my lab..."

Gaz knew he was lying, but she'd already told him that he was a bad liar once today. "Whatever it is you're doing, just make sure it doesn't happen when we're at Bloaty's."

"At Bloaty's?" Zim wanted to gain specification, but Gaz was already getting out of the vehicle. Zim glanced at his blood-work, different chemicals, mild threat response at the mention of that horrible eatery. Not an unforeseeable reaction, and not in any unusual concentration.

"Zim, pay the man," Gaz demanded from the entrance, making Zim pick up his pace.

Although there wasn't anything particularly unpleasant, Gaz moved quickly through the science center, ignoring information that wasn't pertinent to her project.

"That's disgusting," Gaz heard her boyfriend's cry of revulsion, and felt her lips twitch upwards slightly as she turned back towards him.

"What is it, Zim?" she glanced at the display on medieval medicine.

"What kind of retarded species uses their own excrement in medical practices?!" Zim demanded. "There is a reason that waste is expelled from a body! Not even a smeet needs to be educated on such a simple fact! Even if you had the technology to separate the chemical components of your own filth, which I know from human history was not available at that time; it is not fit for medical use!"

"Mmhmm," Gaz smiled softly, watching Zim ramble on, which he did for several minutes before he glanced at her long enough to notice.

His cuff beeped. Zim stood frozen facing the human girl. Her smile widened a little more, before she grabbed Zim's fingers, making the cuff go off once again, as she dragged him away from the display. They walked rather casually now, Zim carefully noted Gaz's reactions. Whenever he found something horrible he would rant, and Gaz would end up walking a little tighter.

Finally they came to the display in question, the one that Gaz required for her school project. She drifted away, the cuff beeped, and Zim pulled up the display, and at least a dozen notices about his blood work that he had ignored while Gaz was so close. He face wrinkled in deep thought as he examined the findings. He glanced up, spotting Gaz among a gaggle of human children, looking rather angry and distracted. Zim smirked, his love-pig was not one for human interaction.

Stupid hormones, Gaz was currently writing a school report on the human equivalent. Humans wouldn't actually function very well with Paks their blood work was all very multipurpose. One chemical applied to nearly every kind of happiness, and as a reward system for healthy behaviors. It was so inefficient, not to mention hard to interpret from any end of the equation. Irken biology wasn't like that, mating behavior was signaled by one chemical only, so there wasn't any way for him to deny the evidence.

All in all though, there were worse humans to form attachments to... Gaz looked like she was about to murder one of the human smeets. Gaz was literally snarling when Zim touched her hand. If the motion hadn't become familiar or if Zim's digits weren't so distinctive Gaz might've tried to snap him in half too.

Zim gently pulled her away before from the miserable creatures before he twisted a camera in her line of sight. Incidentally one stolen from Dib, but that was another point altogether, he left Gaz at the wall before quickly taking a pictures of any part of significance. Zim took a moment to appreciate Gaz's posture on his return, her arms were folded but there was a twist of evasiveness in her step, and a hint of color in her cheeks. Gaz was embarrassed, and completely adorable. "Thanks," Gaz said softly as she accepted the camera.

"Anything for my love-pig," Zim announced rather loudly, making Gaz flinch before her fist collided with the Irken's face.

* * *

A/N:Look a new chappie, yaaay. Yeah, so finally got around to writing more, chapters are getting longer than I'd originally intended for this fic, but oh well, this is chapter so soak it in you pathetic human meat-sacs.

The truth comes out, for those of you who can't interpret big words and round-about ways of explaining: Zim indeed has lovey baby-making feelings about the Gaz-human. How he will communicate this, or engage in such hormone-driven behavior is yet to be seen.


	10. A Rather Awkward Conversation Over Pizza

Zim stopped the vehicle and shuddered, Bloaty's was a sore sight indeed. His cuff beeped, making his female companion twitch. "I don't care what stupid experiments you're supposedly monitoring Zim, the beeping stops now," Gaz said firmly.

"Yes, yes, Zim shall be silent with the beeping," Zim carefully pulled off the cuff (it was attached to his internal organs after all) throwing it into the backseat. "Are you satisfied now, little-Gaz?"

"Not even hardly," Gaz said with resignation as she stepped out of the vehicle.

Zim paused, watching Gaz as she headed for the door to her favourite restaurant, she was still peevish. Her arms were crossed, preventing all possible hand-holding and her gaze never quite met the little green alien's. "Are you coming or not?" she stopped by the door.

Zim followed, it was as if Gaz's improved mood at the museum hadn't even happened. Well if you could call murderous improved, she tended to be much less destructive when she was closed off… yet Zim was almost certain that his relationship had taken two steps back. Although that might've just been the increased awareness of his own condition, was it recent? Logically recent would be preferable, it would suggest that his new mission to subjugate the human female through romantic attachment was worthy. Of course, the new impulses created by the presence of such chemicals would show preference to a long-standing attachment. Gaz was never as annoying as the Dib-human, despite the fact that she had foiled his plans a few times.

"For two?" the pimple-faced teen asked.

"No, we're meeting someone," Gaz said glancing around the room of tables before letting out a sigh of annoyance when she spotted their intended table.

Zim froze.

That scythe-like cowlick was unmistakable.

If Zim had been wearing the cuff it just might have exploded. The combination of his greatest foe in the location of crippling fear with the added pressure of conforming to the needs of his love-pig, now that his body was infested with archaic hormones made Zim's squeedly-spooch churn.

It wasn't as though Dib and Zim were still in the habit of actively antagonizing each other. During Junior Hi-Skool they even grew to be occasional allies. Since Zim couldn't let his mission planet be compromised they occasionally enlisted each other's aid against paranormal or extra-terrestrial threats, (or bullies). But Dib was supposed to be at the distant education facility. The fact that Dib was here… now… Had the Dib-monkey learned of Zim's paramour-type interaction with his younger sister? Had he come to finally fillet the little green alien properly? Violence? Rage? Turbulence? What would Gaz have to say about it if the Dib did do something drastic? Why would Gaz even bring Zim here to meet with Dib?

"Zim," Gaz hissed ferociously from the opposite side of the booth from the big-headed object of apprehension.

There was no more time for debating the horrible possibilities, Zim approached.

"Ah, I remember you, you're Dib's little foreign friend," the almost jovial round tones lifted a weight from the Irken's back.

It was not the Dib. It was Gaz's father. Then Zim paused again. According to his sources, meeting his love-pig's parents, particularly the male parent of the human female was often considered to be one of the most pivotal turning points of a relationship.

Gaz barely let her eyes flicker over to the handshake between Zim and Professor Membrane. After a minute Zim nervously slid into the seat next to her. She had her back completely turned but she could practically sense the alien's nervousness; the high pitch lilt in his voice, the minute vibrations through the shared seat cushion.

"So, what do you like on your pizza?" Professor Membrane asked lifting up his menu and obscuring his face.

"Uh…" last time Zim was at Bloaty's he hadn't actually eaten anything. Just the sight of pizza sometimes made him nauseous. Cheese was out of the question, Zim could remember what happened when Gir had smeared the pizza grease over his face. Who could say what might happen if he consumed it. Meat probably wasn't a good idea either. "Vegetarian… no cheese," Zim said finally. Something about the professor putting his menu down made Zim feel like he was being scrutinized, "It's part of my… skin condition."

"Cyprium-hemoglobinpathy correct?"

"What?" suddenly Gaz's elbow jabbed Zim in the ribs. "Oh, yes, you got it. It's obvious where the genetic factors of Gaz's intelligence come from."

Professor Membrane paused, and then laughed, slapping his hand on the table.

Gaz let out a small groan. It was going to be a long night. Then, ever so gently, Zim's finger's touched her back. Gaz turned, just enough to catch Zim in her periphery, and the small knit of concern in his brow. Damn him, he had heard her frustrated groan and was now trying to comfort her. Probably didn't even know why she had groaned, he was just… Gaz gave up; pushing the stupid alien away would only distress him more so instead she turned to the table and leaned slightly against the hand on her back. Hopefully Zim would manage to be undistracted by her emotional state.

"So, Zim, how have things gone since you graduated school?" Professor Membrane prompted.

"Huh?"

"You did graduate, didn't you?"

"The pitiful earth curriculum was no match for the intellect of Zim!" the alien responded fervently.

"Excellent, what are you studying?"

"Huh?"

"College, University, where are you attending and what is your major?"

"Major?" Zim recoiled. Was the human insulting his military status, suddenly Gaz drove her elbow into his ribs.

"You were taking General Studies, weren't you?" Gaz said, with one eye glaring. "Still looking for a field worthy of your talents."

"Oh, **yes** none of these fields of study are worthy of Zim," he said.

"Ah, I see," Membrane sounded pleased, "you should try applied science; here is room for endless development!"

Zim twitched at the thought of aiding the filthy human race with his advanced knowledge, but he was here to appease the father-human based upon Gaz's behaviour, "I will… look into it."

"Excellent, and here comes the pizza," the professor said.

Zim's cheese-less vegetarian did look a little less unpleasant than the melty, greasy, pepperoni that Gaz and the human professor where consuming. Zim at least had to make a show of eating. The first bite was small, so that Zim could react to any allergic reactions. None seemed to take immediate hold, so he continued taking small manageable bites. He could still feel the inordinate amount of grease on his digits, wishing he could have worn his gloves… well… one glove. The hand on Gaz's back was quite content to feel her muscles move as she chewed, and swallowed, and breathed. It was oddly calming, like the sunsets on Irk.

"So, Zim, what are your intentions with my daughter?" Membrane asked. Zim felt his love-pig go rigid.

Intentions, or rather, the intended speed of physical maturation of the relationship. Zim could easily answer with some paraphrase of human mating vows, socially acceptable, yet with the threat of sounding dishonest. The original mission statement was to make Gaz, the superior human specimen, tremble. It certainly was still a desirable outcome, yet, no longer Zim's primary concern… "Zim's primary concern," the alien echoed his own thoughts, "the physical and emotional well-being of the dirt-child by the name of Gaz."

Gaz relaxed, apparently the answer was sufficient.

"And what has that entailed so far?"

"Zim has accompanied Gaz to movies, roller blading, this eating establishment, a social symposium, simulated battle, and the place of historical records. During that time Zim has received four seals of approval and four times incurred Gaz's wrath. The clasping of hands seems to be the primary act of human affection."

There was a pause, tension in the air seemed to rise, until the Professor's head bobbed lightly. "I suppose that probably the norm for your generation," he acquiesced, he glanced at his watch. "Well, look at the time, I should be getting back to my lab," he shook Zim's hand. Just before he left the building he turned, speaking in a commanding voice, "Daughter, use protection."

* * *

A/N: This chapter came out shorter than I intended, but Membrane ran out of fatherly questions to ask.


	11. Feeling Lost

Zim was lost, not literally of course, Irkens had innate sense of direction. He was lost as to what he should do, lost and useless.

After the last comment from Professor Membrane, Gaz had beat a hasty retreat to Zim's vehicle, leaving Zim conflicted. At first Zim merely watched Gaz's path of escape, he'd seen the wild look in her eyes before she'd broken away from the table. The redness of her face had suggested that she was about to unleash a hell-bent fury that Zim did not want to be the target of. Since she had chosen his vehicle as her place of seclusion, then logically, Zim himself was not something she was trying to escape from. The whispering and snickers of the other Bloaty's customers made Zim's finger itch for the trigger of a weapon. How simple it would be to blast the whole damned restaurant to smithereens, and at least assure _himself_ that it wasn't the threat to Gaz's person. Of course, if it was never the threat in the first place then he really would have cause to fear the hell-bent fury of Gaz for destroying her favourite eating establishment. Self-preservation had demanded that he execute some sort of evasive manoeuver or at least avoid making himself an obvious target. Unfortunately the knot of unease in his squeedly-spooch was concerned for Gaz's well-being, growing ever more insistent that he find out what was wrong and somehow fix it. Why did Gaz even need protection? Considering how capable an opponent Gaz would be, whatever force was threatening her must be formidable.

Concern won over self-preservation, Zim stepped out of the eatery and very slowly climbed into his vehicle. He didn't dare speak, not that he knew what to say anyway. Gaz had curled up, bringing her knees to her chest before burying her face in her folded arms. She looked so small and vulnerable like that. What force on Earth, or even in the universe could reduce his powerful love-pig to such a state?

Gaz felt Zim enter the vehicle, but she didn't bother lifting her head. How could her own father say something like that in front of so many people? He was an idiot, of course, but that didn't really help. Gaz felt lost, useless, with a sizable knot of conflicting desires growing in her stomach. She wanted to hit something. Naturally her father was the best option, but the comment has taken her so by surprise that he had slipped away, which left Zim. That didn't seem fair, especially since Zim probably had no idea what was going on or why she was channeling her anger at him. Where was Dib when she needed him? Of course, her father's comment also brought back her bunny trail of hot and bothered what-if scenarios. When she wasn't mad at the little green alien it was fairly easy to accept the fact that her stupid human reproductive system wanted Zim in the worst way. Then of course came the frustration that she could never have Zim in that way. Once her sheer embarrassment wore off, the people back there were strangers after all, she didn't care about their opinions, it only made it more poignant that the only person whose opinion mattered was sitting right next to her; and his opinion, if she explained what the comment meant, probably wasn't one that she wanted to hear.

"Your father is underestimating you; to think that you need protecting," Zim said firmly.

Gaz let out a snort of bemusement, "I should've figured you'd say something like that."

Zim's brow line raised in confusion, until a sudden sob escaped Gaz's lips. Gaz quickly buried her face again, refusing to reveal the fact that she was crying. For a minute there she'd forgotten that even if Zim were physically capable of such intimacy he didn't really want Gaz like that anyway. Damn him and his superiority complex. He would probably find it amusing if he knew. Zim's concern was his own superiority, or Irken superiority. That a lesser being would want his affection badly enough to experience pain... if it were the other way around she would have found it amusing.

"Gaz?" Zim's voice was soft, his three fingers lightly touched her shoulder, making her lift her head. "Do you... need protection?"

Gaz let out another sob and once again buried herself. It wasn't fair that he could be so sweet when he only wanted to bolster his own feelings of superiority. "Just take me home," she growled coldly from the fold of her arms. She felt the vehicle rumble to life. When they rolled to a stop and Zim cut the engines, Gaz stepped out.

"Gaz," Zim said her name sharply, stepping out of the vehicle. "You are upset with the father, and not Zim, confirm."

"What?" Gaz paused to look back at him incredulously.

"Zim has no time to beat upon your bushes to determine answers. Has Zim been an acceptable model of human-boyfriend in this instance?"

Gaz rolled her eyes, another pat on the back, "Yes Zim, you did fine, better than fine. Happy now?" Gaz resisted the urge to groan when Zim circled his vehicle stopping next to her.

"Then why does Gaz not place the seal of approval of her lips on Zim's face?"

"I'm not really in the mood," she turned away only to have Zim move in front of her.

"Yes, Zim knows of Gaz's moods. The earth girl wishes to doom and destroy, but this is not the mood directed at Zim, so why does Zim have to compensate for the doom directed upon the father of Gaz?"

"You don't, you just have to get out the way, before I doom you instead."

"If you were not mad at your human father, would Zim have the seal of approval?"

"Yes."

"Then you are as controlled by your filthy hormones as the rest of your pathetic race," Zim said acridly.

"You really want to me to destroy you tonight, don't you?"

"On a battlefield a soldier who could not direct their anger at the enemy would be considered defective. Is Gaz defective?"

"No," she snapped back angrilly.

"Then save your doom for those who you want to doom," Zim said darkly. "Zim is only interested in the mood that Gaz feels for Zim."

Gaz promptly slugged him in the arm. But then her hand didn't draw back, rather it uncurled against his shirt. Zim did have a point. Gaz slumped in defeat, holding onto Zim's sleeve like she was five years old. How did he do that? Somehow Zim elicited emotional responses that Gaz had long thought pruned from her vocabulary. "Do you... want to come in?" Gaz asked lifting her amber eyes to a stunned face. Slowly shock turned into curiosity, then into happiness. Zim nodded, finally allowing Gaz to move, tugging him along with her. Gaz knew that Zim deserved at least a kiss on the cheek. Actually Zim deserved more, considering how he handled the museum and the interrogation while somehow staying aware of her own needs. Although, real relationships weren't anything about what was deserved or even earned. Real relationships were based on what the other wanted to give. Maybe Zim knew that Gaz wanted to give more.

Zim gulped slightly as he stepped through the threshold of the Membrane house. Partially because last time he did that Dib had some sort of electrified net waiting for him, and partially because he knew the weight of exposing a base to intruders. Gaz was an exception for him, with her strong task-oriented mind he was certain that she wouldn't do more damage than was necessary to either complete her goal or make her point. Despite his military training Gaz was more pre-occupied with protecting herself, keeping her vulnerabilities hidden. It was why he had so insisted on receiving their pre-established sign of affection, as well as the fact that her soft lips were remarkably pleasant against his skin. Retreating to his vehicle, responding to his touch, those were not the behaviours of self-preservation normal for Gaz.

Once inside, her hand left his sleeve, "You can sit there," she pointed at the couch before drifting away.

Perhaps it was a mistake to confront her, Gaz seemed even more withdrawn now. Even though she had let him enter her house it was more like she had forgotten that it was a vulnerable behaviour rather then made any attempt to be vulnerable. Zim folded his hands in his lap, as though he were waiting for a medical exam. Gaz put down a large tray of cookies, then put a glass of milk in front of Zim.

"You don't have to eat anything," Gaz said, taking a seat on the couch, practically on the arm of it as far away from him as possible, then she put a cookie in her mouth.

Gaz didn't speak for a long time, instead plowing through cookies one after another, dunking them in her milk. Zim looked at the offending earth-foods. The components of the baked goods were essentially the same as the waffles he ate every morning; in theory. Experimentally, Zim took a small bite of one of them. It didn't make his skin melt of his eyes burn. Experimentally he dunked a corner into the glass of milk and tried that. Again, no violent allergic reactions.

Gaz watched. Food wasn't normally her go-to for handling emotions, that's what video games were for. Unfortunately video games were also too tempting an escape in and of themselves. If Gaz started gaming then she would probably ignore the alien until morning. Somehow watching Zim's rather emotive face was calming. He was so easy to read, most people were. But Zim's appraisal of the world was also in line with hers more often than not.

"Protection is a euphemism for contraceptives," Gaz said as Zim was in the middle of a sip of milk. Although in Irken anatomy food and oxygenation passages are not connected, so a ridiculous mishap like is possible with human anatomy was out of the question. Still, Zim paused swallowing his drink awkwardly. "Apparently my father believes that you've gotten a lot farther than you actually have. Of course, such precautions would not be necessary," Gaz curled back into a ball. "The subject made me uncomfortable, that's all."

It was like watching a weight lifting from his shoulders, Zim relaxed, taking another cookie. It wasn't even that he was really trying for a kiss he just wanted to make sure she was okay. Gaz folded up again. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Zim was protective, possessive, Gaz somehow found those traits likeable. She would've found them impossibly frustrating in anybody else. Yet Zim was still rather cowed, easily placated. Which was good, in its way, Gaz didn't really want to put in a lot of energy placating him. It was also sad, like he didn't need her attentions like she needed his. Although Zim had an oddly prevalent ability for compassion, he still couldn't look beyond his own perspective. Since her capacity to explain her emotions was, unfortunately, limited, that meant they were both just wandering through this relationship on instinct a vague clues. He couldn't understand her, and she couldn't simply surrender to his ignorance.

"I'm not getting a kiss tonight, am I?" Zim pouted.

"Sorry Zim," Gaz replied, and rather sincerely too.

"Well, the Gaz still gets Zim's seal of approval," the alien leaned across the couch, planting a kiss on Gaz's forehead. Hopefully that was an acceptable equivalent because it was the only patch of skin he could reach without making Gaz move. She smiled softly at the sweet gesture. "Yes, smile human, let your face muscles contract to indicate a pleasure response."

"Yeah, yeah, it shows that you're the superior boyfriend."

"Huh? Oh yes, Zim knew that."

Gaz paused, Zim hadn't been thinking about that. Zim hadn't kissed her to try and prove he was superior.

As the Irken started standing up Gaz uncurled in a hurry, pulling him back down by the hem of his shirt before she stretched across to capture his lips in hers.

Zim was lost, not literally of course, Irkens had innate sense of direction. He was lost in the gentle pressure of Gaz's soft lips, the ardent grip on his clothing. It was better than the first kiss when Zim thought it was just a sign and stage of the human mating process. No, this was Gaz's feelings pouring out of her like tears. Tears were salty and bitter sadness. These feelings were sweet and warm, and couldn't be described in just one word. Most importantly they were for him. Zim reached, found her arms, her shoulders, her back, and drew her closer to him. Her grip relaxed, with her torso pressed against his with all its warmth, softness and hidden strength.

Slowly that ardent need subsided and Gaz leaned away.

"There Zim, there is your seal of approval, now head home."

"When shall we see each other next?" Zim asked, his arm still hang around his love-pig's shoulder.

"I don't know, it's your turn to pick what we do though," Gaz said easily, she leaned over again, dropping another brief kiss on Zim's chin before slipping away from his arms entirely and heading for the stairs. She was going to bed, Zim could see himself out.

* * *

A/N: That turned out rather well for Zim, yet he still hasn't said what he needs to. Gerber! This series was originally going to be spending much of its time verging smuttiness. Unfortunately the characters keep demanding more "personal development". Curse you writering brain giving the story depth, who shall satisfy the filthy needs of the fandom when you progress at this pace? Lol, okay I got that bit of randomness out of my system. When I'm writing my characters tend to do what they want rather than listen to my original intent. It's almost always for the better, but it's still frustrating sometimes.


	12. Special Privileges

Gaz's GSP trilled and she closed a round of vampire piggy squashing to check it.

_Gaz,_

_Modifications to the base are completed. Zim could provide you with a grand tour whenever you are free._

_Love, Zim_

Gaz's scowl melted into a small smile. A proper tour of his base, Zim was really serious about letting her use it as she saw fit. Funny, this whole thing started because Zim still saw her as an enemy, obviously that, at least, had changed. Zim would never volunteer a tour to someone whom he perceived as an enemy.

"Um, Gaz, you're scaring the group," Maddy said softly. Indeed, the other two members of her team were hiding in a corner holding onto one another tightly. Based on Maddy's face she was just a step above that. Most people weren't witness to Gaz's rare smiles, those who had were in the right to fear them, considering the kind of things that normally made Gaz smile. Why did two words have to be so nauseatingly endearing? Normally her smiles were reserved for the suffering of others, typically those who really pissed her off, but suffering in general could sometimes do the trick. Yet the thought of one stupid green alien finding her presence positive somehow exceeded it.

"That was a good mood face," Gaz specified, scowling again. Watching Maddy relax and encourage the other two back over. Gaz got saddled with finding some appropriate media for a presentation. She'd find a couple clips that were appropriately gruesome to show that she was the one responsible for them. The presentation side was probably why Maddy asked in the first place; because Gaz _never_ spoke in front of the class. Whenever Gaz was required to do a presentation alone she would just bring an episode of her father's show and get a failing grade. Presentations with Maddy meant that Gaz handled the computer while Maddy spoke, she'd get a couple points deducted for not speaking, but Maddy could convince the teacher of her contributions.

Gaz let them continue talking without really paying attention, instead choosing to reply to the e-mail.

_I could come over after school._

_Gaz_

A few minutes later Gaz's GSP trilled again.

_Excellent, Zim shall see you after school then._

_Love, Zim_

Unfortunately Gaz had not made her intentions clear, as Zim was, once again, waiting for her in front of the school. Gaz groaned, once again taking some extra time inside the school and waiting for the crowds to clear. The real gossipy types never lingered. Only nerds, who no one would listen to, and dumb jocks, who wouldn't be able to put two and two together anyway, stayed around long enough to maybe see something.

"I thought I made it clear last time that showing up outside my school was stupid," Gaz said, crossing her arms as she approached the invader.

"What?" Zim's brow line rose. "That was a situation specific declaration; you made no protest the time before last when Zim arrived at the school."

"No, the first time was the specific situation, you called me out of class, and everyone else was still in class. Not to mention the fact that things have changed since then. When I want you to show up outside the school I will tell you," actually she probably wouldn't. Last time she was slightly disappointed, which meant that part of her liked him showing up. No, she soaked up anything that indicated Zim liked her, as futile and imagined her evidence might be. Unfortunately she was still tied to the established known as Hi-Skool. It wasn't that Gaz cared about their opinions, but her reputation afforded her relative solitude, free of annoyances. That would certainly change if the nosy and annoying members of the student body knew she was dating Zim. Zim still had enough of a reputation all on his own that the pairing would garner a frustrating amount of public interest.

"Zim was attempting to show _initiative_," he countered, pouting before Gaz urged him forward.

"Yeah well, you showing up regularly, behaving like you're my boyfriend, that could attract attention, start rumours."

Zim seemed unfazed, "I thought I _was_ your boyfriend."

"You are," Gaz was turning red, "but that's not the point. You need to remember that Dib still has friends here, if the wrong person gets the wrong idea then it will eventually get back to Dib."

That made the alien flinch, "The… The almighty Zim already has the approval of the girl-child's father figure, what can Dib do now?"

"Your little blood feud with Dib drove me crazy, if you stupidly start it up again I _will_ destroy you, Zim; no matter what labels, or trembling you might freakishly have been given," Gaz insisted as they neared Zim's house.

Apparently Zim's tour started the moment that they reached Zim's fence, he turned towards her and cleared his throat. "The lawn gnomes are no longer programmed to target you," he said, "and if you touch the fence post, a bio-scan confirmation will allow guests to enter the ground floor of the base without being evaporated." Gaz smirked, she had never thought Zim would compensate for guests. She wouldn't really bring anyone over anyway, and those she did bring she'd probably avoid touching the fence so that they would be evaporated.

"Welcome home son," the robo-parents opened the door, catching Gaz by surprise, "Come in, Miss Gaz."

"I didn't realize I was a Miss," Gaz scowled, a mildly amused scowl mind you.

"As you can see your identity has been added to their subroutines, although that's mostly for whatever pretense you bring guests in under," Zim said, "Robo-Parents, return to sleep-mode." The two wheeled into their respective closets, powering down. "If they become a nuisance you can supply the same voice command."

"I get voice commands, do I?" Gaz wondered aloud. That was pretty impressive from Zim's perspective.

"In the case of conflicting orders command is deferred to me," Zim said. "Mini-Moose is similarly informed, though with his advanced capabilities he will likely not obey any commands that are not in my own interests. I tried to inform Gir, of course, that's no guarantee of behaviour, stupid defective robot. As for the house computer, your status has been updated from incidental ally to second-in-command."

"Wait, what?" Gaz paused, "What does that mean?"

"Incidental ally means that if I haven't given the computer any commands related to you, you are free to leave the base or access any facility when I am accompanying you. Second-in-command means that unless it conflicts with an order that I have given you have access to defenses, communications, and facilities, which incidentally puts you above Mini-Moose in jurisdiction. His privileges only come into play during an emergency."

"What's Gir?"

"Gir is currently classified as a pet," Zim frowned, clearly displeased.

Apparently the little robot had heard his name getting called, because he shot up from under a side table, launching himself into Zim's face. "The Swiffer is on my back! The Swiffer is on my back!"

"Gir!" Zim yelled flailing, fighting to pry the piece of scrap metal.

Gaz smirked, watching Zim flail like an idiot. It was kind of cute. Then Gaz paused at the realization. She'd just thought Zim's idiocy was cute. Idiocy could be entertaining to watch. As long as they made fools of themselves and didn't get in her way. It had never been cute. Gir pulled Zim's disguise off in the struggle, which only made their little game seem more endearing.

With a groan of frustration Gaz held out her arms, "Gir, come here."

"Wheeeeeee!" Gir happily leapt from his master's head into Gaz's waiting arms.

"Now keep still or I'll drop-kick you into next week," Gaz said darkly, Gir squeaked and froze in place. "What's next on my grand tour?"

"You may choose, Gaz-human," Zim pulled out a paper, "these are the chambers of the base, just tell the computer where you wish to go first."

Gaz glanced over the page, while Gir stretched in futility to grab the paper, the names were laughable. There were three storage rooms, the "making stuff" room, ship bay, the observation study, the training room, the experiment lab, and the transporter room. Gaz knew what the "transporter room" was, a mass of tubes to whatever destination Zim may have programmed in. She suspected that her last date in Zim's base was spent in the training room. "Computer, take us to the experiment lab," Gaz said, dropping the paper into Gir's waiting claw hands. He might have shredded it, at least, Gir had sounded like a shredder, but Gaz already knew what order she wanted to see the base in anyway.

The floor depressed right where they were standing, creating an elevator where it was needed. (It had always been a feature, but Zim usually just used the fixed location tubes.)

"Excellent choice love-pig," Zim said, wrapping his arm around Gaz's waist.

"I'm still not a pig," Gaz pushed the Irken into the wall in displeasure. Gir laughed, pointing as his master, snuggling into the one arm that Gaz was holding him with.

"Insolent little robot, you dare mock you master?!" Zim fumed.

"Call me something nicer and I'll let you touch me," Gaz challenged.

"Uhm… fiery Mierdot?"

"In English, Zim."

"Sweet-pastry-thingie..."

"Try again," Gaz stared ahead while Zim growled in futility.

"Sesame flower!"

"No."

"Lickable pudding!"

"No."

"Begonia of all things pretty."

"No."

"Argh!" he yelled, "Zim knows not what to call the epitome of human loveliness that is Gaz!"

Gaz felt a blush creeping onto her cheeks, "That one wasn't bad."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Gaz bumped her hip into Zim's and he wrapped his arm around it again. "One, you used my name without some insulting prefix or suffix, plus, being the epitome of most anything is pretty good."

"Well then, you are the epitome of many rather admirable things, Gaz," Zim nearly purred, finding her cheek with his thin lips before the elevator opened and their tour continued.

For whatever reason, Gaz only stayed close enough to leave Zim's hand around her waist for exactly 5 minutes and 15.753 seconds. Gir got held for longer than that; managing 15 minutes and 35.933 seconds before angering Gaz. The little robot would have to repaired later, that one dent was rather unsightly. However, while Gir seemed to earn ambivalence or outright murderous annoyance, Zim managed to elicit a few smiles, as well as a couple instances of Gaz groaning and hiding her face in her hands. Although he wasn't quite sure which was the better deal, more touching seemed to equal more painful retribution.

"Well, that wasn't nearly as lame as I expected," Gaz said as they returned to the ground floor.

The house itself has mobile death machines functions," Zim said calmly, "if you require a demonstration."

"You know I wasn't actually, ugh, never mind," Gaz headed for the door. Trying to explain the subtleties of the English language was pointless if the human brain cell experiment was any indicator.

"You are displeased," Zim stated rather than asked. Gaz stopped, he wasn't really that bad at reading her, at least he was better than most, he could differentiate whether or not her smile would be accompanied with a severe beating.

"Well, it wasn't exactly fun," Gaz replied.

"Fun? The point was not fun! Zim was showing Gaz the technological capabilities that she is now in command of."

"Dates should be fun, Zim."

"Date? No, that was… when you came here to do homework did it count as a date?"

"No, that was just me stopping by to do homework."

"And this was you stopping by for a tour of the facilities," it sounded like he was talking about a restroom. "If there is a date there will be plans with definitive timelines."

"Fine, but for the record, even me stopping by to do homework was more fun than this."

"Wait, how was that fun? At the museum you were entertained by Irken superiority."

"No, I was entertained by your ridiculous ire-filled ranting, museums are boring. Even Dib is more interesting than a museum. And this was basically a museum that no one was ranting at."

"What? Well, what made homework better?"

"One, it was entertaining to see how frazzled you were at my suddenly showing up. Two, homework is more boring than a museum and you were distracting me from it, and therefore, it was entertaining."

"Zim could distract you again," the alien suggested with a quirk to his smile. It sounded perverted; Gaz wasn't sure how he managed that without a sex drive.

"Distract me from what? I'm not doing anything."

"Computer, did you finish the download?" Zim demanded.

The computer groaned, "Yes."

"Excellent, display the Game Slave Portable on the living room screen."

"Game Slave Portable," Gaz blinked.

"Whenever you enter the base the computer will sync to your game progress and allow you to play here with the advantage of Irken's advanced technology," Gaz stared wide eyed at the controller that Zim pulled from the walls and waggled provocatively in front of her face.

* * *

A/N: This chapter feels slow to me. Does it feel slow to you guys?

Oh well, I guess it's an establishing chapter.


	13. It's All About the Wording

"We need some two player games," Zim said flatly as he watched Gaz playing.

"Quiet Zim, I'm fighting a boss battle," Gaz snarled back. Or perhaps she was snarling at the boss she was battling; Zim wasn't sure. What he was sure of was that turning his home into Gaz's personal arcade was a _bad_ idea.

On the positive side she came over nearly every day. On the other hand any attempt at "distracting" the human female from her game devices was folly, and usually hurt. And since Gaz was around regularly their usual outings had also fallen away. Add onto that the fact that Zim was increasingly uncomfortable as he began recognizing his new "emotions" on a day to day basis.

He missed touching her. True he got a kiss for a greeting and a goodbye but… it wasn't enough. Gaz seemed satisfied just to have him nearby, but simple proximity was insufficient for him.

It wasn't as though she didn't have time for more. Zim's computer constantly downloaded her GSP data, which included email, browser history, and personal calendar. The school project which Gaz had joined a group for was complete, and nothing of significance had been written out until winter break and class exams, yet any suggestions he made either by e-mail or in person got shot down.

Zim did have a potential solution… if removing the games was just another way to incur Gaz's wrath than the only thing he could remove was himself. He would deny Gaz his presence for her gaming sessions, monitor her from elsewhere in the base and see how long it took her to notice…

Gaz wasn't bothered the first time that Zim dismissed himself. She assumed he was just getting something to munch or something to do because he was bored of just watching. If it were her just watching other people play she would've been bored too. By the time Zim did it for the third day in a row Gaz was getting frustrated. What was his problem? Was her existence so menial that as long as she wasn't emotionally battered that he didn't think it worth the bother? Just because her video games kept her more grounded than he ever could what with his damn wide eyed stare he'd gotten bored with the whole endeavor. Just because she refused to just roll over and let him play whatever game their relationship was to him. Gaz glared at the screen, taking out her frustration on digital hellhounds. Well _screw him_!

That wasn't a safe train of thought. Mostly because… well… that's what Gaz wanted to do… all the time. When Zim wasn't around she missed his dopey green face enough to come crawling back. When he was around she wanted his attention so badly that the only option was videogames. Something in that lustful little purr of his made her heart race too fast to breathe, so the video games that Zim wanted to distract her from became the distraction.

Gaz was good with video games. They allowed her to think straight. They allowed her to cope beyond that ever present desire to find out first hand exactly how non-existent the particulars of Zim's anatomy were. When the whole thing had begun she had honestly never thought that it would get this bad. But if she wasn't engrossing herself in video games she knew it would be worse, and that frightened her. So she satisfied herself just by being close, by a small drop of affection between mind-numbly exhaustive game play. She couldn't do _that_ if he wasn't _around!_

So instead of a kiss goodbye that day he got slugged in the shoulder. And that stupid smug little smile that followed made her so angry and so desperate to just give in to all her stupid hormones that she slugged him again, this time in the face, and practically bolted from his askew little home.

At least violence meant he was having an effect. Gaz was not blind to him entirely when she put her nose into those games. Zim rubbed the bruise on his jaw wondering if Gaz had managed to dislocate something. He wouldn't know if she did, because the punch seemed to strong enough to warrant a mild dose of painkiller from his PAK.

Then Gaz didn't come back the next day. He'd waited in the living room after her class ended, surfing through television channels and watching Gir regurgitate live insects. After the sun had set, and after double checking Gaz's personal calendar Zim had to admit that he'd screwed up… again. Gaz was mad at him… again. At least this time he knew what he'd done to provoke it, he'd ignored her to try to get attention. Well, not exactly ignored her, he'd monitored her activities while in his base to see the affect his absence had.

They were going round in circles over and over. Even if he found some way to apologize if it just perpetuated this maddening cycle then what was the use? All this guesswork was rubbish. Zim knew how much Gaz needed to spell things out for him. It wasn't like Irkens had any training in the romance department; and even if they did it probably wouldn't have been compatible with human mating rituals anyway.

Hopefully Gaz would respond to emails… or at least look at one if he sent it. Zim knew he at least had to try to re-establish some form of communication.

_Gaz,_

_Zim regrets making you angry. You may sit and play all the games you like and I will not ignore you. We need to __**talk**__. So do not make Zim show up outside your school again…_

_Love, Zim_

He attached an image of himself wearing the collar just for good measure.

Then Zim stared at his screen, taking in the words carefully so as not to make some false step. It was just his usual send off and yet somehow he couldn't stomach it. It hadn't meant anything before. He'd send it to himself, to Gir, the Tallest, if he was writing to Dib it would have probably ended with the same two words, and that made Zim shudder in horror. Gaz required something different. Gaz deserved something different. What exactly? Zim wasn't sure. He frowned, but hit send anyway. It wasn't like he could somehow magically change their relationship with just a couple words, besides Gaz had made no complaint about the signature before. He would just… avoid ending his e-mails with that word when it was someone other than Gaz… yeah…

Gaz stared at her bedroom clock, watching every minute tick by wrapped up in debate about what to do about Zim when her Game Slave Portable trilled. She could guess who it was. Zim was the only person to spring to mind with an immediate reason to contact her. She could already imagine the e-mail, probably followed by a dozen like-minded others, apologizing, admitting he knew nothing of dating, threatening to invade her school, maybe even a picture of him in that silly spiked collar. If he'd just been wearing that silly thing when she showed up she probably wouldn't even be able to stay there long enough to play any games. Then her eyes read the subject line: WE NEED TO TALK

Gaz couldn't breathe; it was like her chest seized up. Like a mannequin she stiffly placed her console into her drawer and turned away from it. Perhaps Zim didn't understand what those four words meant. Certainly wouldn't have been the first time. Although, Zim also studied what he could through movies and television which was probably where the cliché was learned to begin with.

It would trill again. Zim was such a scatter brain that if it was just a poorly phrased apology note that he'd follow it up with something else. It wasn't like he would sit down long enough to digest his own words unless he was announcing some finality. So Gaz waited, sitting up through the night, waiting for another thought to hit the Irken and loose the clamps that had encircled her chest.

The next sound she heard was the sound of her morning alarm.

Why? Why now? Why so soon? Three months; it wasn't an unusual amount… if you were shallow and vapid. That wasn't Zim, that wasn't the invader who'd spent nearly ten years trying to conquer the filthy planet. And he'd shown far less concern for his 'mission' than he'd shown towards her in the three months that they'd been dating.

With how much this hurt Gaz remembered why she'd been so afraid to get close. She knew this was coming eventually, and she'd walked into it anyway. She'd just let his zipper-like smile and his bizarre personality dig under her skin and touch her soul in ways she'd denied all her life.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She needed to feel something else, anything else. Her train of thought was starting to sound damn suicidal and she wasn't going to go any further down those tracks.

Reaching over to grab her GSP was out of the question. So instead Gaz reached for the phone, dialling the first number she could think of.

"I was in a lecture!" the voice on the other side snapped.

"A lecture on what?" Gaz asked, curling around the phone.

"Gaz? What's going on?"

"Just TALK Dib!" Gaz demanded.

* * *

A/N: NO! Why is it stopping there?! Stupid misunderstandings! Stupid!

See, I'm frustrated by the cliffhanger too! Just because this darn pairing and this darn story won't sort themselves out right. Where is the kissing? Where is the sweeping romance? Why do you guys have to be stupid emotionally underdeveloped teenagers?! Whyyyyy?!


End file.
